Of muffins, marriage and men

By Paul Purcell

It was during a long hot summer’s day that the subject of muffins and men came up.

I was sandwiched between two hunky friends on a golden stretch of beach and I’d casually mentioned that I was looking forward to a muffin and a coffee after our morning sunbake when Tony casually mentioned that I was fat. Alan pitched in with his own sly comment about my having a muffin tummy.

Now there are some things a gay man never wants to hear and being told you are fat is the second worst after child molester. But for someone who is 87 kilos and 6’3, the last thing I could be accused of was being overweight.

It’s true that I don’t have rippling abs, boulder shoulders and big guns (biceps), but neither do I look like a refugee from The Biggest Loser.

Yet, in comparison with these two prime hunks of beefy (single) manhood it wasn’t easy coming up with a firm rebuttal to their jokes. These 50-something men both worked out, had muscular shapes in all the right places, and looked the epitome of toned, tanned and terrific gay men.

One of them had even been a contender for Mr Gay Sydney ’08. But even in their apparent perfection I could still find a flaw.

Admittedly, Alan did have a handsome square face, with matching blond streaked hair and blue eyes, broad shoulders, an impressive chest, and tight buns. But this superman lacked a ripped stomach.

And while Tony had the same blond hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders and bubble butt, he conceded he had a touch of tummy fat when he did the caliper test and grabbed a slab of stomach between two fingers.

Sure, I could lose a little bit of my middle-aged muffin belly, but why should I half starve myself for beauty? When they started to list their various war wounds from training I relaxed, blissfully thinking that I was happy to munch on muffins while they struggled with pinched nerves and aching tendons.

Reaching our tanning limit, we brushed the sand off and headed off for coffee. Lining the road were tempting eateries and in the cafes row after row of beautiful, sweet and tasty cakes beckoned the window shopper inside.

Tony wistfully and silently inspected the cakes but refused to touch them for fear of the added carbs he would have to deal with later.

Maybe one of those great myths of gay married life was true -” once you get married you don’t worry about what you look like any more.

You’ve got your man and you don’t have to watch every single calorie that goes into your mouth, run a marathon every day or do weights seven days a week and twice on Sundays.
Married men choose cake; singles choose gym. What more could a happy and contented gay man like me ask for than to have his muffin and eat it too?