I suppose it's hopeless trying to help a friend who so royally hates himself at the moment.. but I can't help it.

I refrained, however, from telling him how I really felt about what he was saying.

The IM window goes something like this: "How are you?" "I hate myself." "Aw.. Why? *nethug*" "Good. Squeeze out all the fat."

What the fuck? My friend, let's call him Jon, is a kick-ass person. He's kept me up until 5am many a night laughing and chatting on the phone about just about anything. His living space is full of the sculptures and souvenirs from all the places he's been in the world. His mind is decorated with culture, intelligence, humor, travels, and business sense.

That's his predicament.

If he could, he'd tear down the walls of his mind and replace them with posters of naked men, feather boas.. maybe some dance lights too.

Jon was upset over having gained weight. He's had this crisis before: "Oh my god, I gained 10 pounds! What a world, what a world!" Well, history repeats itself. Basically, Jon hates himself because he's gained weight and is afraid that he's not a hot little bottom boy anymore. He tells me that his only course of action is just to deteriorate, because he's turning into an old fart (he's 22) and will cease to exist as a homosexual male human being this time next year. He'll supposedly be gigantically fat, wrinkled, and empty.

"But you're so much more," I tell Jon. "You've got a mind, friends who like you for YOU, and I would love you if you were 400 pounds with horns growing out of your head!"

"I don't believe you," Jon types back. I knew that he almost sent "I don't care."

"You don't believe that I care about you and love you no matter what you look like? You are SO MUCH MORE."

Maybe it's too late to save him. Maybe he's one of them! Maybe he'll even lash out at the people who care about him the most to guard his superficial bounty!

Listen up, bottom boy. If you want to lobotomize yourself for the acceptance of a social clique and some hot sex with an equally degraded person, you have that right. But it absolutely insults me to sit and listen to you tell me right to my face that essentially you are afraid you are going to become me, whose abs drowned in a sea of lipids by the time he was 12, and whose ass is so large, he's court-ordered not to do 'Da Butt' in all 50 states. I'm alive! I'm not blowing my brains out! If I can learn to stop hating myself for my genetic makeup, you can sure cut the crap and start doing those ab crunches if you really want that measly 10 pounds gone that badly. Go ahead, get that bitch Suzanne Somers to send you an ab-cruncher and get to work! Slave for your cause!

I still have a tough time understanding where he comes from. I don't even know how little Jonny can even stand to suppress so many thought processes and neuron firings to try to fit into the clone scene. It's like all he wants to be is a 6-pack and a hot ass. I myself absolutely cannot be in bed with a person whose mind doesn't stimulate me as much as his body does. He doesn't have to have rock-hard abs and ass, either. In fact, I've had dates where I sat on the bed and talked and talked to the point where he almost tried to stick it in my mouth just to shut me up. If it's all about the sex, it is just not going to work for me. Jon and I are just two different people, I suppose. (And I still make a node to bitch about it!)

Whoever is looking for just the flashy wrapper will probably not care to read the ingredients either. He'll just open you up, eat the contents and throw your sorry wrapper into the trash. "Boo hoo! My boyfriend's not going to love me if I gain weight!"

Does he love you to start with?