Age Question

[julix]

Is me yea, so you see, Im telling the truth, I will NEVER look as good as her...

Wraith

you are beautiful Tabbi...........I have seen several pictures........why do you feel you are not?  Did you have someone important tell you you wern't?  I ask because that is what happened to me.............

[Wraith]

Well, yes and no. Its complicated and goes to many different issues. But primarily, its because I see Ms. Spang, and I see how wonderful she looks, and Im jealous, because of decisions Ive made in my life that Im paying for now.
I chose to be a gymnast. I might get a lot more publicity for the whole cheerleading thing, but honestly, its not my bag. I do it because its what my scholorship says I need to do, and I want to be in college, so I do it. I dont do it well. I dont care that I dont do it well. In fact, Ive about had it with it. Its a great sport for people that love to cheerlead, but Im a tumbler. I love gymnastics! Its my first love in all the things. But, theres a price to pay for being into gymnastics. That is, you do lose your figure. I am NOT going to have a great figure no matter how hard I wish it. Ive been mistaken for a 12 year old while out in just a sport top and spandex shorts jogging. I actually had a truance officer stop and question me. So yea, at almost 20, I think its probably NOT a good hting to get stopped and asked what Jr High I go to and why Im not there. So that hurt, and that wasnt like it was a long time ago. It was like four months ago.
Also, when with other girls, Im always mistaken for being someone elses little sister, and guys my age dont even give me a second look (Not that I care but thats another reason entirely). Still, it would be nice to be admired by my own age group. Its nice to be able to get into movies for half price, but other than that, it sorta sux.
Finally... I hesitate to say this but my sexual orientation doesnt necessarily include men. Nuff said...
Its hard to be controversial in this day and age, and especially hard in a conservative state like Az.

Wraith

[zankoku]

Tabbi, My daughter was a competitive gymnast and I know what you mean about teh body. But trust me, when she stopped gymnastics, she blossomed into a beautiful woman (she always was anyway) She also grew several inches. You know 500 dismounts a day tends to keep you short. Now she is 5'8". She did pay teh price with a broken wrist, but she took 3rd All around during the competition, qualified for level 10 and she was 12. Imagine young girls competing in a sport listed as Women's Gymnastics.

At your age, you should not give up on men. Sometimes it takes a more mature man to see you for what you are. Those young punks in college never do

[Wraith]

Well, I dunno. Glad to hear about your daughter. I remember my days when I hit 10's. That was like the ultimate. I hung around there for a bit, went to seniors and then fell apart. Actually I just fell, a real career ender. Pulled up short on a blind release, was on the high bar, went up for a laied out double with full rotation, not a hard move, easy. I just lost myself for a second, didnt extend out and caught the bar in the chin. I hit that mat like a ton of bricks, fell back onto my back on the bounce (yea I hit that hard) and was out for the better part of an hour. After that I just never had the nerve to get back up there. I do okay with the basket tosses in cheer, but after this fall, Im not sure I even want to do that anymore. Im not sure how many more whipe outs I can take. Ive taken too many face plants as it is.

Wraith

[zankoku]

My Daughter, when she recovered after three surgeries went on to 4 years of cheer in Highschool. She was the only one to do the pyramid. When the Senior squad was doing the tryouts, they all groaned when my daughter did the splits. She was used to the beam where both feet and her butt were on the beam. She was good at beam and bars. Now she is raising a 5 year old and got her Doctorate in Physical Therapy in August.

[Wraith]

I hear ya on the groaning part. I can over split eight inches. Thats where I split and put pads under my ankles till they are about even with my chest. I used to get up to my shoulders, but Im getting old. My fav event is the beam too BTW, Im queen of the beam. Still love it, I got my friends to get this beautiful picture of me doing a split leap on the hand rail of Hoover Dam. It was classic, I totally got about three feet of air there, and you can see the look on the tour guides face, talk about terror hahahaha. I gotta dig that out someday and post it its so funny.

Wraith

[zankoku]

I have a pic of my daughter doing a back flip on the beam where no part of her was touching the beam. I was sitting on the floor taking pics at ASU West during the State meet. She was 12. It's true what they say about the camera. I never realized that she was in the air<g> until I saw the pics. Also have one of her standing on the beam with on foot above her head in a straight line. She was really flexible.

[CaptainTux]

Tabbi,

I do not know if you are reading the forums here anymore, I hope you are kiddo.  You and I have had some pleasant PM's on CF.

I can play the reality game too.

Maybe you wont be as beautiful as Laurette.  Maybe you will not fill out a dress as well as she does or Julix does.  Maybe you will be 27 and still be carded...not for booze, but to see if you are out after curfew.  

Maybe you will have a bad year and eat cheeseburgers and weigh in at over 200 pounds.

SO WHAT?

The image empire aims for beauty that is not achievable or realistic and you have bought the lie that this is what we are supposed to be and this is the standard we are to reach for.  I've worked in theater on stage and I have worked backstage in televisions studios in Chicago for two major news networks.  

Normal people walk in a door, make up is used, gauze and petroleum jelly cover cameras, lighting is carefully crafted and imperfections are covered (figuratively today...really happened not too long ago).  Since you are gay I have no problem discussing Playboy magazine with you.  

Any photographer pr graphic artist worth his salt can tell you where and what has been retouched to employ a level of beauty and perfection that does not even exist in the woman being photographed.  It is a lie.  A lie that men lust after while the woman they married is a real human being.  That is your sin.  You are a real human being.  

Your complexion, hips, breasts, hair, etc may not be perfect.  But you also do not spend 2 hours with trained professionals enriching you before you go out of the house...and you are in a real world without lighting techs and directors to make sure only your good side is seen.

I am sure Laurette is lovely in person, but on TV...a lot of work goes into making these folks look hot.  

You got a good head on your shoulders, lemme ask you this.  Is it better to fall in love with who you thought was attractive or to continually grow more attracted to the person you fell in love with?

I know I would rather be loved for who I am and not how I look.  I do not look bad these days.  After Jen left I stopped caring ad zipped up to 250 lbs.  I am now at 194 and working my way down to 175.  Remove my shirt at a public pool and you will see two large scars on my upper back...one stretches from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, the other starts in the center and works it's way to the back of my neck.  The bottom spine near the tail bone...well....that kinda looks like someone took a meat cleaver to it.  My nose is just a little bit crooked from it getting broken twice in its life.  Once as a boy and once at a bar.  My point....I ain't perfect, but when I look in the mirror, I like what I see because I like who I am.

I am a good father, an honest businessman, a talented guy, and one day....someone's greatest love.  In the meantime, I ain't too sour on the eyes.  Not perfect...Brad Pitt and some others got me beat in face and physique....so what.  

I do not want a woman who wants Brad.  I do not want Cindy...I want well (place name of whomever she is here).  Whoever you meet will and should want Tabbi.'

By the way, I hope I have built a rep with you of integrity and honesty....

You are beautiful.  You have an arresting face with amazing eyes and well....wow.

That is all fine and good, but at the end of the day it is you who has to look in the mirror and see what I see.  No surgery or sudden curves will change that.  That has to come from within you.  No one can do that for you.  That is your job...all we can do is be a cheerleaders, kiddo.

Much love,

Patrick

[mikedx]

Tux,

Your words ring so true.  I saw a magazine article about how they adjust a models picture for a cover.  They showed the before and after.  The digitally slimmed her down, rubbed blemishes out of her face, etc.

I also am not interested in someone that looks perfect.  It means whenever we went out, she'd have to bring out her makeup crew, lighting crew, wardrobe crew, etc.  

I wish all young women could understand your words.  They can never compare themselves to tv and win.  Because tv cheats.

Mike

ps Where is Tabbi these days?  Did she run off with the doctor out of the country?

[CaptainTux]

It is something the young men need to know as well.  While there are lovely young women purging themselves and doing other hard to fit into something that is the trend that their bodies are just not designed for...there are young men taking steroids and doing other forms of harm to themselves...and others sometimes...trying to carve that perfect body that again...science and individual physiology may have made prohibitive.

Plastic surgeons are now offering financing terms for the desires of the lower middle class.  Kids in their 20's are gutting risky surgeries to improve an external never knowing that the freak-Richard Simmons_was right that you have to love the inside and outside you are now if you wanna improve it right.  Fixing the outside changes NOTHING on the inside.  If I get new siding on my house..it looks a little better outside and what not...but it is the inside I have to live in and invite friends to.

I was a model from age 2 to age 11.  There was mew who went to school and there was the me that went on a runway.  That me had all sorts of folk styling my hair and making sure I was standing and walking a certain way...b;lah blaj blja blah...it is a creation.  A distorted reality.  AN unachievable reality for most.
What is achievable is far more rewarding.  Love, acceptance, friendship...all rolled up into one person.  That is far better than a buff bod.

In one of my least proud moments in my life I was dating a young woman who was in her early 20's.  It was a BIIIG ego stroke for me and nothing else.  It had none of the elements of the love and friendship and the acceptance I spoke of.  Dumb dumb dumb dumb.  Pretty is good to look at, but in the end, it is no guarantee of what matters.

[julix]

I am not sure where Tabbi is............I think Jim heard something from her a bit ago.  Mike and Tux, there are men who feel the way you both do, and I am always amazed when I run across that type of thinking.  I do also know a majority of men and women who claim it is what is inside that matters but then when it comes down to it it is not the way they act.  I know we all appeciate beauty and attractiveness but I am concerned about the overall drive for physical perfection.  The actress in hollywood all look the same age whether they are 20-59(and beyond)I was noticing at the last Bronco game, the cheerleders.....they all look the same!  I mean obviously, they want fit cheerleders but they all looked exactly the same.  It is like Stepford cheerleaders and in beauty pagents as well. I mean in my day the beautiful women were in shape but had individuality. I don't get it.  I can go on and on on this subject, it is very close to my heart.  I heard growing up how I wasn't ever enough..............pretty enough, thin enough etc.....I always believed it is what is on the inside that counts.....but not everyone else does.

[zankoku]

This comes from a gal who is drop dead gorgeous herself. <g>

Julix, you are right of course. Look at some of the women who were the idols some years ago and today. Some are are gorgeous as they were then and it is not from make up. It is from taking care of themselves. Some is from the knife but you can tell them. And some shovel the make up on like Tammy Faye. (How anyone coul dthink that is gorgeous is beyond me.

Jim

[CaptainTux]

Julix,

I love the stepford comment!  ROFL!

Now, as far as things go with the inside is what matters but I still wanna date a model...yep..that exists.  The rhetoric is more prevalent than the reality.  

I think we all want to have more character than we really posses.  Relationally, though, this is something you have to be real on...if you have your head screwed on right.  

If you are in this to find a soul mate, you have to be looking for not only a lover, but a best friend.  Someone who lifts you up when you are down and knocks you down a few pegs when you get too cocky.  Someone to be a partner.

I heard my grandpa tell me that he knew he knows love.  He can look at his wife ironing with her hair in rollers and say "My God!  She is gorgeous!"  If that is what you want from a marriage, then the treasure inside has to mean more than the exterior.  

I have a friend who was the "hottie" in HS.  A few years ago she was diagnosed with MS.  The medication has caused some weight gain, her life circumstance has made her less active, etc.   The man whom she gave three lovely children to and used her paychecks to put him through college to get his Masters degree dropped her and remarried to one 17 years his junior within six months.  Other than physicality and need level, she did not change.  She is still the same lady...but his love for her was bankrupt and empty.He was a fool and is a fool and I wish him nothing but trouble.  

Beauty fades, we can get cancer, MS, Parkinsons, suffer a stroke with facial paralysis, etc.  If the person loves you without condition they will stand by your side.  

That is what I want, and if that is what I want I darn well better be willing to give it.  That is the difference between talk and action....thinking through what you really want out of life.  Love and friendship vs a trophy.  That is what it boils down to.

As far as Julix's beauty.  I only have the avatar to go by.  I am assuming that in your youth with all the fools filling you with talk of not being skinny or pretty enough...no matter how you may have been...what you saw in the mirror was not good enough.  Happens to many people, you are not alone.  

I am friends with the girl who was my school's Prom Queen and lead cheerleader.  She was a lonely girl in those days who never believed her own beauty or merits.

[julix]

Jim...............Thank you
Tux,
I think you have a good head on your shoulders.  When you said you want to be someone's greatest love............I think that is wonderful and I hope you find it.  I am sorry about your friend who's husband left her.  It is all too common, even if the spouse is not sick.  Just older.  as far as me, it was my mom and my aunt telling me all the negative things.  They didn't mean to hurt me, but it did.  I don't think I would have been affected by any comments(there weren't a lot) if the people closest to me had encouraged my self-esteem.  Instead it made my doubt myself and still do to a point.  I am going to be 43 in about a month.  I wouldn't go back to being twenty, not if I had to relive what I have lived.   There is a balance to life and I am trying to find it.  I encourage others to try for the same.

[CaptainTux]

Julix,

I am a fool in philosopher's clothing.  

I agree with you about balance and not wanting to be twenty again.  I am 35.  I like where I am.  If I changed one thing that happened to me or one thing I did...good or bad...I would not be here right now.  It ain't perfect, but me likes it.

The only think I miss about 20 is being able to run 10 miles and barely breaking a sweat.  Playing football or hockey with friends and not being sore for three days.  Being a frelling toothpick at 160 pounds.  Other than that..you can keep 20.