The Bangable Range

I have my sushi date after work today, and as is my custom, I did a little reviewing of his profile this morning. Checked on his music taste (decent), his use of grammar (acceptable), and his pictures (yup, still cute). I was surprised to see he and I have a pretty low match percentage, and I ---

Okay wait, hold up. Here's a little overview of OkCupid for those of you with no frame of reference: You fill out your profile with deep prompts like "What I'm doing with my life" and "On a typical Friday night I am...", then you answer questions, both from the site and user-submitted. They range from anything from "Do you smoke?" to inquiries about gay marriage and birth control, from "In a certain light, wouldn't nuclear war be kind of exciting?" to "Do you like your hair pulled during sex?" You can pick and choose which questions you answer, and you can say what answer you'd prefer your "ideal match" to select. Then the site does some SUPER FANCY complicated math, and hammers out a match percentage.

Kay, overview over. (But FYI: My match percentage with my BFF is 97%. We are so gonna get married and buy babies.)

Like I was saying, match is kind of low with tonight's date, but I don't really give it all that much importance anyway. I had one guy email me to point out that our percentage was insanely high, but none of our answers lined up, so I'm not really sure how it works. Anyway, I usually read through some/most/all of the questions when I first message with a guy, but I guess I skipped that step this time around. This morning I scanned through a few pages of his responses, and found myself a bit deflated by what I found.

My primary issue of concern was his responses to questions about weight. "Can overweight people still be sexy?" Apparently not. But, see he would date an overweight person, "as long as they aren't obese". Overall,  though, he prefers "slim" ladies. Harrumph.

These answers irritate me for a variety of reasons. First, of course, being that while I certainly would no longer crush a baby if I accidentally sat on it (actually I probably would, poor baby), I ain't no twig. Second being, even if I was a twig, I really have no interest in a guy who might dump me if I broke my leg and gained weight whilst recovering. Third, the type of guy who would actually put that sort of weight discrimination out there in his profile just immediately comes off too shallow to me. I don't have any problem with a guy who is just genuinely not attracted to a little extra cushion (just like I'm not attracted to skinny beanpoles) but what purpose does it serve to broadcast that to the world? Just don't email the fatties. Problem solved. Gawd.

And now, I finally get to the point of this post. I'm so chatty today.

I shared my misgivings with a friend, and said I was less enthused about the date than I had been. And so she slapped me. With her words. She reminded me that, generally, the average man is far less judgmental and discriminatory than the average woman. When a man hears "fat" they envision triple digit jeans sizing and all you can eat buffets. They think "overweight" is 200 extra pounds of stomach, not 20 extra pounds of hips, ass, and jiggle.  They don't nitpick like we do, seeing an extra inch here or there. They don't see a middle range.

To most guys, you're either fat, or not. Hot, or not. Bangable, or not.* The line in the sand is in the eye of the beholder, of course, and not everyone is going to appeal to all. And in this case, the dude has seen my pictures. I clearly struck his fancy. And if we meet in person and I exceed his weight category of "attractive"...well then, fuck that guy. 

Because I am totally bangable.

What do you think, am I on target with this? Do you think men see weight less than women?

*This is of course discounting guys who are specifically attracted to the bigger ladies, and believe you me, I have dated my share of those.