The idea of someone starting off thin but accidentally getting fat has always appealed to me. By discovering beer and good food, deciding to work out/play sport less, enjoying overeating and gradually... they end up chubby or fat. I'm slightly sadistic in that that I enjoy their (pretended or conflicted - it would be too mean if they genuinely were upset) dismay at having put on weight, and that part is only fun because they knew what it was like to be thin before.

So in that sense people who have been fat all their lives are less interesting to me - the change from thin to fat is where it's at

I agree with Reaperman that if you're not abusing company resources or time your personal life should be your own, but that's a little too simplistic for some of us.

You have to consider how you are perceived. Nobody may be (legally) able to "fire" you once it's common knowledge (say where you work) that you are active on a site like this, but imagine what that might do to your career prospects. No, they're not going to put on the interview form "I happen to know they're a weirdo so I won't promote them this time" but they WILL form their own personal (possibly misinformed, prejudiced) views which will cloud their objectivity.

They don't even have to be poking around on sites like this to find out what you're into. It only takes one mischievous other person (who might legitimately be an FA/feeder/other but who is less careful about others' privacy) to send an email to another with a link to your photo, or re-post your photo on another website, probably not even maliciously, and *bang* your private life is public.

As a self-employed person my reputation is everything and I am aware that although I'm not doing anything "wrong" by being on here, there are people upon whom my livelihood depends whose outlooks maybe more blinkered than mine and whose opinions could affect my career.

Again it also depends on whether you are talking about merely being proud of your own size/shape or your preference for others of a certain size/shape, or whether you are talking about your sexual preference/fetish/sexual activities. This site encompasses the latter. I would certainly not want my family, "vanilla" friends, co-workers or potential employers knowing the content of some of my forum posts on here. It's the same as someone who's into BDSM probably preferring to keep it private. You only need someone to link your face photo on here to your user name and then to your forum posts for them to have some potentially very embarrassing information about you.

Of course I could choose not to post such comments but I prefer to have some outlet for discussion, whilst keeping my face and real-life identity minimally discoverable.

MrMan the only way I've managed to deal with this is to send photos by email to those I have established I can trust. There are also photos on the events forum so people can see I really exist, if they can be bothered to trawl through and find them.

You could try coming along to events and meeting people in real life?

Not being able to cook would be a turn-off for me.

And by cook I only mean standard home cooking. Being able to make, say, pasta with a home-made sauce, a fish pie, a lasagne from scratch, decent eggs (scrambled, poached, fried, omelette), maybe a Thai or Indian curry recipe, being able to fry/grill/bake/roast say a chicken breast/steak/joint of meat to the right point and serve it with appropriate rice/potatoes/whatever and vegetables (not over or under-cooked).

I don't mean cordon bleu or fancy. Basic cooking skills are vital for your own health too - and budget. So I say definitely go for it, it's a life skill that will stand you personally in good stead whether it bags you a lovely lady or not

I LOVE this one:
www.syreetabadu.com/
especially the dress with giant shoulder puffs. Top recommendation, thanks Debz!!

Oh all right then. It was Danny in Withnail And I, and it's called a Camberwell Carrot because Danny invented it in Camberwell, and it looks like a carrot. And FYI it can utilise anything up to 12 skins.

So... what musician links Space Oddity, Walk on the Wild Side, and Grandad (as sung by Clive Dunn)?

(Sorry so nerdy but I saw him play a gig earlier today - what a legend)

I'm not answering (can't think of a question) but just want to say:
"If I medicined you, you'd think a brain tumour was a birthday present."

Mike in Spaced, played by Nick Frost. Hehe, hilarious series

What links: Simon Le Bon; Mark Hollis; Matt Johnson; Marti Pellow?

Gatorade is "safer"?

It's made by PepsiCo. Its branding as a "sports drink" is marketing.

The reason I bloat with water is because I'm not trying to gain, nor do I want my teeth to rot. I also don't like the taste of most sweet drinks. Additionally I try to avoid over-consumption of sugar/sugar-like products as diabetes runs in my family. I believe Gatorade may recently have elected to remove high fructose corn syrup from its drinks (most people are already aware of the health risks associated with that) but it still contains sucrose, glucose and fructose.

Water is always going to be the healthiest way to hydrate yourself. But if you want to drink it to excess for bloating purposes, you need to make sure it's closer to the composition of your body's natural fluids to ensure your body doesn't react badly to taking on that much fluid in a short time. Hence add some salts and sugars. However only a small amount of salts/sugars is needed. The amount you need to add won't even change the taste of the water that much, unlike the amount of sugars in "sports" drinks, which are teeth-clenchingly sweet. You certainly don't have any need to drink 3 or 4 litres of Gatorade. Last I looked, my body was not composed of anything like the ingredients of Gatorade.

I can only assume PepsiCo's advertising of Gatorade as somehow "healthy" has conned people into thinking that drinking vast quantities of something so artificial is "safe". One bottle might well help rehydrate you rapidly after an intense workout but I don't think even PepsiCo is advocating drinking 3 or 4 litres of it in one go. It might be correct that you need carbohydrates, electrolytes and hydration for prolonged or endurance sport or exercise, but not necessarily for bloating.

Incorrect. Educate yourself.

The staff in the greasy spoon opposite my house gave my boyfriend a discount "because your girlfriend is always in here".