What It Feels Like For A White Boy

I despise weight rooms not for just for their stench, bacteria, and heat, but also because of how weak and powerless they make me feel. Television, magazine, and movie images of beefy gods stare back at us at the grocery store and the living room. Would someone please show me a successful skinny white boy who isn't an annoying quirky hipster or nerd. Both major media corporations and the blogosphere LOVE to complain about how our culture makes girls feel the need to purge and do aerobics till their dead and skinny. What about how society tells boys they need to be all meat and bulk? The girls who lament the treatment of woman tell me to eat a hamburger and do some bench presses. Ever wonder what it feels like to be a skinny white gay boy? I feel like my body image will never match up to my intellect or creativity because I'm neither fat not muscular. Sometimes I feel like it's better to weigh as much as Noah Hill than be myself. I mostly hang out with girls and they're aloud to be thin. Why not me?

Today, like last summer, I lifted weights at the gym. I felt no release or positivity. I just felt ugly. Then I saw across the gym a forty year old man lifting as many weights as me. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he way trying to relive his past flory days. He wanted bulk. He was trying to be something he's not. I'm saying goodbye to the weights once and for all. I love my yoga and my swimming. Yet, I still feel sucked into what TV has told me. Boys should not be thin, the tv says and I don't understand why. Even Zac Efron, a pretty skinny boy, has gone all hairy and buff. But I won't let myself do that. I won't be sucked into the status quo. I want to be like Monique. I want to love myself for being thin. It's not my fault I have a fast metabolism, anyways.

I feel as if I'd feel better about this if I had some sort of roll model. My own personal Monique or Juno. But unfortunately, it's wrong to sing a song about what it feels like for a white skinny boy.