My dear girl LA is involved in yet another episode of �Who Wants To Be A Cheese-Infested Dick� starring one Mike D. Husband in the title role. Her re-telling of the latest exciting episode reminded me of a few scenes from my own past marriage to a Dick. I had thought to write her a message of hopefulness, to share a tale of a beauty-obsessed leopard who eventually changed his spots� but then I remembered that there was a �rest of the story� and the whole thing would have been too long and too self-involved to qualify as a bona fide message of support. But since it was on my mind and I�ve got little enough to write about these days, I thought I�d share it here.

I met Dick when I was 19 and a skinny size five, shortly after my divorce from Doug, who also happened to be a Dick with a capital D. Post-divorce from a man who always maintained he didn�t think I was sexy at all, yet whose jealousy made him hate seeing me try to fix myself up in any way, particularly if it meant me spending money on myself; and under the tutelege of a very beautiful if rather slutty friend, I went a little crazy with the sexy clothes, heavy makeup and headful of blonde, spiral-permed curls. I was a fine, foxy specimen of whorish loveliness if I do say so myself, and after spending 3 years having infrequent sex with the original Minute Man, I was as ready for some hot action as my looks suggested.

Dick was shy but I was not; and when, after days of flirting, he hadn�t yet asked me out, I asked HIM. We had some kick-ass sex that very night and even though I had planned on playing the field for awhile, he seemed so nice and the sex was so good that when he asked me to be his girlfriend I didn�t hesitate to say yes. He thought I was sexy and he was proud to show me off to all his friends, one of whom I overheard remarking on how Dick always got the cutest girlfriends�

Fast forward a couple of years, post-baby and post-90-pound weight gain. It quickly became apparent that Dick and I had had little in common but our enjoyment of being young, attractive party people; but suddenly we no longer had the money or the freedom to party, and one of us was no longer quite as attractive as she used to be, a fact which mortified the other one of us to no end.

I noticed my husband suddenly stopped being so eager to introduce me to his friends. If we ran into someone he knew at the mall, I mysteriously ceased to exist momentarily while he spoke to his friends. The couple of times I brought it up, he said it was because he couldn�t remember THEIR names and didn�t want to be embarrassed by trying to make the introductions. I bought it for awhile, until I realized it had been a very long time since he held my hand in public, and in fact he tended to walk a few paces ahead of me whenever we were out together. I gradually became aware that my husband was ashamed of me because I had gained weight.

Our marriage continued to deteriorate, until I couldn�t stand it any more and issued an ultimatum. He wasn�t a talker and he was even less of a listener�god forbid we should over-analyze anything by having a conversation about it! But I told him that we needed to start talking things out and make some changes in our relationship or I was gone. He was shocked� he had no clue I wasn�t happy! (Hello? How do you not notice your spouse has been near-suicidally depressed for years? Oh, I guess if you�re gone most of the time and you never have a conversation with her when you are home, that little fact might just escape you.)

He was stunned enough by my ultimatum that he did finally begin to talk to me, and to listen, and we actually achieved some real honest communication for the first time in our marriage. Among many other things, I told him I felt like he was embarrassed of me because of my weight, and he ashamedly admitted that he did feel that way. He�d been attracted to me because I had a nice body, and he liked the status of having a good-looking girl on his arm. But he also said he loved me and didn�t want to lose me, and he promised to make a real effort to change not only his behavior but his attitude. He did ask that I make more of an effort to dress up a little more, wear makeup and fix my hair, and I agreed. He had a point� I had let myself go somewhat since gaining weight.

He made good on that particular promise, too. He started to look for things he still liked about the way I looked, and I made it easier for him by keeping my end of the bargain and making sure I looked as nice as I could for a fat chick with no money. He liked my shapely legs and my face, so I wore dresses and makeup and grew my hair out for him, and he became more complimentary and attentive in public. For awhile we had a real revival of our romantic life, but ultimately our personality differences were just too great for us to be happy together. We eventually split, mostly amicably, and remained friendly until all the shit with Prunella and the Evil Childe hit the proverbial fan.

He had done a fine job of convincing me during the last few years of our marriage that he was a changed man, no longer shallow or narrow-minded when it came to women and their looks. And during our separation, he suddenly became Mr. Conversation� we�d sit and talk for hours, but mostly what we talked about was the people we were dating. Dick had discovered the Magical Pussyland that existed in online chatrooms, and began to ply his charms on lonely married women and single moms to great personal advantage. He was the belle of the ball in one particular chatroom where the penis-bearing member of the species was rare and highly prized, and even before we actually broke up he was being flirted up and propositioned by women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Several of the women he actually met in real life�some he even had his way with�and none of the women were particularly gorgeous.

Prunella came about from this particular chatroom, and of all the women he met from there she was definitely the best looking, even though significantly overweight. Though she was married, she gave him the sob story of her loveless relationship and pushed to meet him for sexual purposes. Their second liasion took place when she came to visit him in the town where we both lived. One particularly memorable moment was when they rang my doorbell late one night after having been out at a club, slightly drunk, all dolled up from their date and wanting me to take their picture together. She looked very attractive and sophisticated in her black cocktail dress, with her sleek blonde hair and red lipstick, and Dick bragged about a couple of guys who had tried to hit on her at the bar. It�s not like they couldn�t have found someone at the club to snap their picture, so it was obvious the entire reason they came over was so Dick could show her off and try to make me jealous. I guess it worked a little too� even though I didn�t want him back in the slightest, my pride was definitely pricked by his smug pleasure in finally having an attractive woman on his arm again.

Of course I didn�t let HIM know I was bothered, I just took their picture, chatted for a few minutes and then went back to bed. A few days later she went home to Minnesota, and Dick and I resumed our friendly relationship. He told me he liked Prunella a lot, that she treated him really well, they had a lot in common and the sex was great, but she seemed like she wanted to get serious a lot faster than he wanted to. Having just gotten free of our marriage, he wanted to play the field for a while, and was somewhat embarrassed to admit that, since he�d become so popular with the chatroom ladies of late, he didn�t want to tie himself down. Not so much because it was too soon after our separation to get tied down to anyone (which actually would have made sense) but because for all Prunella�s plump attractiveness and fine qualities as a potential partner� he was hoping to find himself a woman who was really HOT-looking to hook up with.

Kind of ironic then that Prunella had got herself knocked up �accidentally� on that very visit. Dick did his manly duty and stuck by her, while she went on to gain quite a bit more weight over the course of the pregnancy. Poor shallow Dick�zoinked by the Fat Fairy yet again.

See? No helpful moral to this story whatsoever. Well, "men are pigs" comes to mind...

Present husband excepted. (Mostly.)

6 felt the need to share

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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