Confessions of a (former) Chubby Chaser

Dan Conner was hot. No, not hot, but hawt. Before "Roseanne" reached its final season on television, and before it was put to pasture in re-runs, I realized that I was attracted to John Goodman, the actor who played the husband and father in the series.

It was another phase, strange in its unexpectedness, a phase where I was attracted to large, overweight men, especially if they were also tall. Like most things in my life, I didn't give it too much thought at the time.

I was busy working three part time jobs: as a cheesy dancer in the cheesy Snoopy show at Knott's Berry Farm; as a server at Spoon's Bar & Grill; and as a "dancercise" instructor at Racquetball World health club. And I still wasn't able to dig my way out of an overwhelming mountain of debt. George Michael's song "Hand to Mouth" kept running through my head, month to month, paycheck to paycheck.

I wasn't able to get hired as a performer anywhere else that year. It was a depressing year.

The following year I got hired to perform in a theme park in Japan. The job provided housing, transportation, and great pay. The year-long contract started in the springtime, and the living was easy. I was able to pay off large percentages of debt each month.

Once the stress of the previous year had been removed, my hindsight was twenty-twenty, once again. It became clear that I had been attracted to large men when I was stressed out about my financial situation.

Why was that? Did large men represent security to me, whether financial or physical? Did I see them as being able to protect me from my precarious state and possible bankruptcy? Or did I merely see them as temporary sanctuary to escape to and be completely surrounded by, away from financial woes, however briefly?

Domestic Partner is not a large man, but he is my stability in life, in many aspects.
I haven't felt drawn to large men as much, since that desperate year of debt. But neither do I look at large men, nowadays, as being completely unattractive.