I am going to regret this

And now, to alienate the vast majority of my audience.

It is hard to be thin. I'm not saying that it is a challenge for me to prevent weight gain - on the contrary, I've been eating as much as possible, hoping to bulk up, since 1999 (although from 2001-2002, the eating wasn't about weight gain, but about the munchies).

I contend that society hates skinny people.

This is where a paragraph about the underlying causes would go. This would be a sentence about how anorexics have given endomorphs a bad name. Here is a reminder of man's craving for inclusion, the ubiquitous us-vs-them mentality. There is no way for me to write this paragraph without the sort of assumptions and generalizations that place my foot in my well-fed mouth.

Instead of pontificating about the origins of my pariah status, I'll amuse myself by bemoaning the repercussions. Forget the patronizing "you're too thin!" accusations. Forget the unspoken rule that we must never speak of our own condition for fear of offending those friends with whose dietary woes we regularly sympathize. We're going to talk about clothes.

One caveat: I generally try to dress-to-impress by giving the illusion of wealth, but I don't actually have wealth. While I'll (probably) have a (somewhat) respectable (lower-middle class) income somewhere down the line, for now I'm stuck buying my yuppie-looking clothes at sub-yuppie department stores.

The frustration from this infra-yuppie shopping comes from the paltry choices available to someone my size. For example, I like dress shirts, but I like inexpensive dress shirts that one can get at unreasonably low prices. The cheap ones come in Small, Medium, and Large, rather than the neck-size / arm-length measurements of the classy shirts. I, being a thin man, buy the Small shirt... and then I ask my seamstress [read: mother] to add darts that make the waist slimmer. The Small-sized sleeves are always too short, which I sidestep by rolling them, but the torso is always a little too short as well. Without periodic maintenance throughout the day, my dress shirts all come untucked.

Similarly, I buy Small polo shirts. Occasionally, I get lucky and find a shirt that almost fits. It is far more likely, though, that a shirt that fits my chest and shoulders will leave enough room in the gut to house a third-trimester pregnancy.

Addressing the lower body is a little simpler. Anything dressier than sweatpants comes in waist-and-inseam sizing, which gives even the frugalest grad some control over fit. The challenge, however, is actually finding the pants that are in your size. The next time I go shopping, I'm bringing a Powerbar and a bottle of Accelerade.

Clothiers make clothes to match demand. Retailers stock clothes to match demand. I'm not saying that they should waste money or space on the needs of people in the fringes of society. It's just a shame that being thin means that I'm in the fringes.

Having written this completely self-indulgent diatribe, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that I am well aware of how lucky guys have it. Yes, we have chests, stomachs, waists, hips, butts, and legs, just like the womens. Getting clothing that fits these features, though, must be infinitely simpler for us than it is for the fair sex. Plus, we're better at driving.