Looking for Love in the Gainer Community

After last week’s post about relationships with civilians, I wanted to address the logical follow-up question: “If gaining is really important to me, is my dating pool really limited to only gainer/encouragers?”

Of course that’s a question each guy needs to answer for himself, but if your answer is yes, that shouldn’t be cause for anxiety.

Of course, the numbers can be a little scary. After all, there really aren’t many of us who are into gaining, encouraging and bellies out there in the world. Let alone locally.

And when you think of all the flakes, freaks, crazy-crazies, guys who think “cam?” is the same as “hello,” married men and good-old-fashioned assholes out there, well the prospect of finding love in all of it can be daunting.

But at the same time, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic.


THE NUMBERS ARE ACTUALLY ON YOUR SIDE

I’m reminded of a particularly funny scene at the end of Dumb and Dumber. In it, Lloyd is trying to find out if he has a shot with the woman he’s pursued for the length of the film, and she says his chances aren’t good:

Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?

Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.

[pause]

Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance... *YEAH!*

I’m sure you’re wondering who in their right mind bases their worldview on a movie like Dumb and Dumber, but Lloyd had a point in his stupidity. Sure we can see the numbers as daunting. But they’re daunting for everyone. You can see one in a million as impossible, or you can see it as opportunity.

It might not always be conscious, but we’re constantly limiting the kinds of guys we date. If you want a guy who’s funny, you count out all the humorless men in the world. If you want a guy who’s considerate, you cut off the inconsiderate ones. If you want a guy who looks or acts like X you omit guys who look or act like Y. And so on.

Hell, being gay is probably the biggest limit we impose on ourselves (restricting our dating pool from about 45% of the human population to roughly 5% in one swoop) and yet few of us seriously say, “Gee, maybe I should be dating women to broaden my pool?”

The gainer/encourager community is small. It’s hard to estimate exact numbers, but there are about 7,000 users on beefyfrat and 7,000 on bellybuilders. Some of those are overlapping, but a good chunk aren’t. And probably 10-20% of beefyfrat got onto the site by accident. So at best estimate, I’d say there’s somewhere around 10,000 of us who are into gaining/encouraging, aware of it and online.

While being a gainer/encourager certainly limits our options, at the same time it creates an astounding opportunity. Through sites like beefyfrat and bellybuilders we have direct access to thousands of guys who have the same thing going on in their head (and around their mid-sections).

In marketing we call that micro-targeting, and it’s a good thing. You cut through the clutter and communicate directly with the sub-audience you’re interested in reaching. That’s the opportunity we have through online gainer sites that instantly puts those 10,000 dispersed guys at our fingertips. Suddenly a dating pool that could seem disparate and foreboding is right in front of us.

Not all of them are single. Not all of them are sane. Not all of them are guys you’d even get along with, let alone date. But you don’t need to like all of them. You don’t need to date all of them. And you don’t need to fall in love with all of them. You just need to find that one. One in 10,000. Those are some odds that Lloyd would be thrilled to have.

One of the reasons why it’s important to keep things in perspective is to keep from feeling desperate. We all deserve to wind up with someone we truly, madly, deeply love, not just the guy we settled for because our options were so few. That’s not fair to him and ultimately, it’s dishonest to ourselves.

By remembering that our options are not as limited as they may seem, we can relax more, breathe easier and remind our inner worrier, “Someday I will meet my soul mate—the guy who gives me an ‘ootz’ in my stomach every time he walks in the room—and he will be into gaining/encouraging.”


HOW TO MARRY A GAINER/ENCOURAGER WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

But there’s a catch.

You can’t marry a gainer/encourager without really trying. Part of our lot is that we need to be proactive in order to really find the guys we want.

Yes, there are thousands of guys out there into gaining and encouraging, but most of them are not local. If you live in a big city, then you probably have a few hundred single and active guys within reasonable travel distance. The love of your life could very well be one of them, but more likely than not, he’s somewhere out yonder.

And that means you need to travel.

I’m not talking weekend sexcapades, but if you click with a guy online (or better yet a few different guys in the same area), think about visiting him (or them) at some point. Travel doesn’t need to be expensive (for cheap airfare, see: www.kayak.com and for a cheap place to stay, see: www.couchsurfers.org) and the rewards can be big.

The internet is great, but there’s really no way to know if a guy is your “one” until you meet him face-to-face.

For some of us, travel is a natural thing (we get a buzz from seeing new places and exploring exciting destinations). For others, travel is more of a nuisance. Either way, you’ll want to make it work for you. Gotta travel for a conference? Hit up some local guys from the frat. Visiting a foreign country for vacation? Post on bellybuilders and see if anyone wants to meet up at a local bear bar.

Perhaps the best opportunity we’ve been given is Expansion (no I’m not on their payroll, I’m just a big believer). I give my sincerest thanks to Clayton and Serge for creating an event where guys into gaining, encouraging and all things belly can be themselves and meet others with the same interest. Last year we had over 80 guys show up and I’m certain next year will see us break 100.

If you’re serious about making friends or dating gainer/encouragers, then there’s no better opportunity for you than Expansion.
The main idea here is to be the master of your own fate. “There aren’t any decent guys around here,” just isn’t a good enough excuse. Our community is small enough that love won’t come and find you. But we’ve been given the tools to go out and find it.

So get your rapidly-fattening ass out there and see what the fuss is about. If you play your cards right, you just might find a guy who’ll invite you in for tea and strumpets. Lloyd would be proud.