Fatty Flakes (aka, Why All The Cunts?*)

In this post, I will tackle the seemingly ubiquitous pattern of flakiness among the gaining community, and the gay community in general, when it comes to real-life meet-ups. It's a recurring problem, particularly for any of us who are keen on actually meeting in person, as opposed to maintaining an exclusively virtual existence. I can't imagine why folks wouldn't want to meet in the flesh -- especially since our kink is so...fleshy. Yet it remains a persistent issue.

To begin with, I will share some examples of flakiness that I have encountered. After that, I will talk about why these are particularly harmful for the gay community, and for the gainer community in particular. Lastly, I will provide some suggestions on how to avoid being a flake in our very small (heh) community.

Flakedom

I've been meeting members of the gainer community for about six years. In this time, I have seen all manner of flake. In every case, the flaky behavior was entirely avoidable, which is why I am calling it out as flakiness. I don't consider emergencies or last-minute work or family situations to be flaky behavior -- that's just life. However, failing to let someone know that an emergency came up is, indeed, flakiness. You better have a doctor's note describing your near-death experience, with the police report showing your cell-phone was smashed.

[Parenthetically, I am writing this while waiting to hear from a beefy member who wanted to meet for lunch today. It is now 11:55 am. He has spoken to me for several years now, said he is a big fan of my videos, and wanted to finally meet. I gave him my phone number and told him to get in touch this morning to let me know when to meet. Still, no word. I'll let you know if I hear from him.]

Let's discuss a few types of flakes that you might encounter. The first and most egregious example of flakedom is: The Vanisher. This is the flake who is practically drooling with excitement to meet up, contact info is exchanged, and then you never hear from him again. If you have his digits, you shoot him a text asking what's up, and you don't hear back. Or maybe it's days or weeks later when he decides to grace you with a response, elaborating on some lame excuse about how busy he was. Frankly, it doesn't matter what the excuse was -- the damage is done. He showed disrespect by not having the balls to send a message and cancel the meetup. This is disrespectful because it shows he doesn't value your time, which you set aside for the meetup. Think of all the other things you could have done with your time, rather than waiting to hear from/meet someone who couldn't be bothered to contact you.

Fortunately, I haven't had many examples of Vanisher flakes, although I have heard many in the community lamenting their experiences. I have heard tales of guys driving hundreds of miles, or worse, flying across the country, only to have their meetup vanish. In some situations, these guys had to scramble to find lodging, as this guy was also supposed to host. The behavior of the Vanishers is appalling. I mostly have experienced guys in other cities/countries who get all excited about meeting me, and when I arrive and make contact, they vanish. Really? It was a such an appealing idea to meet with me when I was in another state or country, but now when I'm in your city, it's too threatening? The worst is when it's someone I consider a friend in the community, someone I have known for years. To be blown off by someone I have grown to really care about hits deep in the emotional gut. It also tells me quite a bit about the character of this "friend."

Another example of flakiness is the The Procrastinator. This is the individual who doesn't vanish entirely, but takes forever to get in contact to cancel the meetup. Typically, procrastination is occurring everywhere in his life, as being too busy or having too much work to do is a typical excuse (really, you forgot all those assignments when you were drooling over my pics the night before?) They also typically message very late to cancel, as if you were an afterthought. While the cancellation is appreciated, its now too late for me to do something else with my time. Again, this is disrespectful.

[By the way, my lunch date just texted, saying, "I had some things come up this afternoon that makes my time a little less flexible." It is 12:14 p.m. Not exactly a late reply, but too late for me to do anything else with my lunch plans. And how ironic that this just occurred, as I am writing this. Now you know why I do other things, like write a blog post, while waiting to hear from a guy. Experience has taught me well].

I have some great examples of the Procrastinator flakes, in addition to the one above. One member of Grommr was very excited to meet me, and we spoke at length about how our lunch date would unfold. In our discussion, I asked him about his experiences with the community, particularly our local (NYC) community, and he said, "My main problem so far has been the extreme insincerity/flakiness of 80% of guys on there." Then he messaged me two hours before our date, saying, "I suck! :-( I didn't realize how much I had to do today. Raincheck?" He then proceeded to blow off my raincheck suggestions and hasn't contacted me since. I spoke with another Grommr member who was also supposed to meet with him the following week, and this guy did the same thing to him. Very classy. Insincerity indeed.

The Procrastinator flake (or flakes in general) are not exclusive to the gainer community. You'll find them throughout the gay community as well. Here's another classic example. On a gay social phone app, there is a member with a profile name, "don't flake." I kid you not. His username caught my attention, so I started chatting with him and asked him to join me for coffee or drinks sometime. He ignored my message for about a week, and finally got back, saying he is broke and can't go out for at least another six weeks. Really? You can't afford a cup of coffee? The fact that he chose this profile name was particularly ironic.

There is one more type of flake that I will label: The Refractories. These guys are the ones who actually do follow through with a meetup for encourager/gainer purposes, but then disappear after said meetup without any follow-up conversation for weeks, months or even years later. I labeled this group after the physiological phenomenon called the refractory period, which is the period of time after orgasm in which most males are unable to be aroused and orgasm again. I call this a psychological refractory period, in which many men, after orgasm, feel inclined to push away from their partner, and perhaps not talk for a period of a few hours or days until they are sexually aroused again. For many of us (myself included), we just don't feel like talking or getting sexual again with someone we were just with. So to a certain degree, we might argue this is normal.

But because our unique kink involves such a taboo activity in our society, I believe it is detrimental to the community to be a Refractory flake. Even if you don't feel like sending a thank-you message or text to your meetup partner, do it anyway. After all, what is the message conveyed if you don't talk again? What might be his take-away message from the meetup? Was it bad? Is there something wrong with me? Is the fat/gaining aspect weird or unattractive? You could imagine myriad self-doubts that might run through one's head, simply because this flake disappeared and couldn't be bothered to acknowledge the experience. As a matter of practice, I will always send a thank you message between 1 and 4 days after the experience, even if I don't plan to meet the person again. There's enough self-loathing in our community; a simple thank-you acknowledgement goes a long way.

Why Flake Out?

To understand why guys flake out, it's important to acknowledge the nature of the medium in which we meet, as well as the uniqueness of our kink. First, because we meet online or via mobile apps, there is quite a bit of distance and anonymity to the conversations. Its pretty easy to lie, or use fake pictures, or disclose inaccurate personal information. To some degree, I think flakes may engage in these behaviors because they want to keep their participation solely in the fantasy realm. Having a real-life meetup means acknowledging that fantasy in the flesh. It might also mean disclosing some aspect of himself that he previously was lying about -- his height, weight, age, job, partner status, etc. It would be much harder to fake these things if you met someone in a bar or party, for example, because you would be able to assess his body language as well as his words, giving you insight into the veracity of his statements. Over the interwebs, however, we just have to guess...and hope.

Related, I think flaking out occurs because of the taboo of the kink. Some guys are embarrassed to be seen in public with a fat guy. They probably think their "gay cool card" will be revoked. I think there is also quite a bit of guilt and shame associated with both gaining and admiring, and this finding was verified by one of my recent surveys and blog posts. Some guys probably feel guilty about the thought of indulging in the gaining kink, and certainly the Refractory flakes feel some shame about their participation. Ironic, isn't it, that we have sought out this gainer community for support from the less-than-open-embrace of the gay community, only to treat each other with the same indifference.

I think flaking out occurs because of a general attitude of apathy and impoliteness that seems to be permeating many aspects of society. We now have a whole generation of young people raised in a virtual world and they seem quite comfortable with ignoring, blocking, and deceiving in an online world (Certainly these behaviors aren't limited to the younger generation, but I think they really exemplify how much these behaviors can be integrated into one's online existence). Moreover, hand-written notes were replaced by phone calls and emails, which are now replaced by text messages, wall posts and tweets. Its so easy to blow someone off now, so why not? I guess the only comfort I can take is that, most likely, the flakes have also been flaked upon by someone else, so flake begets flake. Meh.

The Remedy for Flakicidis

This is the only flakiness I want to see

Obviously, don't be a flake. That's the easiest remedy.

But I realize its easier said than done, particularly considering some of the discussion above. So below I am listing some ideas to consider in your interactions with members of the gainer/beefy community, or gay community in general.

1. COMMUNICATE! This is really important so I put it first. No flaking would occur if proper communication preceded it. If you really are unsure if you can make a meetup, tell him that. If you really don't want to meet someone, tell him that. You aren't saving any hurt feelings by going forward with plans to meet and then blowing him off (just to avoid telling him you aren't interested). I actually think a lot of flaking occurs because of this -- guys who are too chickenshit to tell someone, "you know, I really dig your belly, but I don't think I want to do much more with you, physically speaking." Sure, it's brutally honest, but its honest...and would save a whole lot of hard feelings later on.

2. Be mindful and empathetic. This means thinking about and respecting the other person's ego, their self-identity and importantly, their time. Would you blow off a lunch date with your mother without ample warning? Of course not, because you are mindful of her feelings and would feel guilty about it if you did. Why is treating a online friend any different, really?

3. Treat others as you'd like to be treated. Do you like being blown-off? Like having guys ignore you? Like making plans only to have them disregarded? Exactly. So why are you doing that to others? Lead by example.

4. Consider online contacts the same as your real-life contacts. Sure, things come up in life, and we need to cancel or reschedule plans. But do you leave your friend waiting for you without any notice? Of course not...otherwise he wouldn't be your friend much longer. If we treated our online contacts with the same respect, we'd all be a lot happier.

5. Stay in touch before and after meeting. Even if the meetup was the sexual equivalent of a Greek tragedy, avoid being flaky after by sending a quick note thanking him for meeting up. It takes two minutes, and goes a long way to building strong community ties.


In summary, I think its clear that flaky behavior is deleterious to gaining and gay communities alike. It makes us distrustful, angry, sad, and weakens community ties. I know that I personally plan to call it out whenever I see it. Behavior doesn't change unless there is consequence for it, and a bit of punishment is just the thing. Personally, I'd like to see ratings of community members on Grommr and Beefyfrat, similar to the ratings of sellers on Amazon or Ebay. I would call them reliability ratings, and they would simply be a way to rate an individual on how reliable he was in terms of connecting and meeting up. I think the repeat offender flake should be called out on his shenanigans. And what better way than publicly, right on his profile?

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* Thanks to TadpoleBrown for this oh-so-fabulous title