News-Letter

F

riday night at Brewer's Art I was happily enjoying a fishbowl-sized glass of Duvel when the guy next to me tried to start a conversation.

"I like a woman who drinks beer," he said. "You know, you really have to be on top of your diet to really enjoy something as fatty as beer."

Thanks, thanks a lot.

But he was right, I was really enjoying that beer -- and then the Ozzy, and then the Resurrection, and then the Yuengling. Then the next day, I dragged myself out of bed and ran seven miles. Fun.

Oh, the things we do to enjoy our beer.

The amount of time I spent worrying about the Freshman Fifteen was nothing compared to the amount of time I spent dieting after coming back from six months in Europe, where the Guinness is creamier and French wine isn't an import. With college life comes a whole other food group: alcohol.

And it's not just alcohol. It's also that pizza is the food most likely to be given away free, and thus where we're most likely to go for dinner. Whole Foods, unfortunately, is not within walking distance of campus. Now that Tamber's is open again and I can get chicken tikka masala within ten minutes of wanting it, I'm a lot less likely to have Special K for dinner.

Of course, all these delightful college pleasures have their cost -- usually in pounds. My beautiful size-two friend, who probably wears the same jeans she wore in middle school, goes to the Weight Watchers meetings at the gym. She's not trying to lose weight. She's "watching her weight" -- she saves up her Weight Watchers Points for alcohol.

I think most of us make an effort to be healthy, as evidenced by the overflow of people waiting for cardio machines and the annoying lines at the build-your-own salad bars at Levering and Charles Commons. But what I find most annoying is not the wait, but standing there and staring at the super skinny freshmen in line ahead of me.

There's always that one girl in front of me in line, rightfully wearing the spandex leggings that are all the rage these days. And man, she wears her spandex well -- her thighs don't even touch. How is that even possible?

That means that when swimsuit shopping, she doesn't have to arbitrarily skip the boy-short section like the rest of us. She probably has fifty pairs of hot pants, as she should. Hell, I haven't been that skinny since I turned eleven.

And what wouldn't I do to be that skinny again? I freaking hate salads. I am not a bunny rabbit. Eating leaves doesn't exactly light my fire. Take me to a barbeque! And sure, I work out all the time. I work harder for my mile times than I do for my GPA.

But then my yoga teacher said that I would never lose weight that way. Apparently there's a difference between building muscle and burning fat: To burn fat, you sit there for an hour at a low intensity. I'd rather just shoot myself and call it a day.

Can all this possibly be worth it? I doubt guys see girls walk by in their miniskirts and leggings, turn to each other and say, "Check out the thighs on her."

Maybe they do. But as I was walking across the freshman quad last week, I overheard two girls half my size talking about how fat they were. Then one started talking about her latest "discovery" -- fat-free, sugar-free chocolate pudding with fat-free, sugar-free Cool Whip and fat-free sprinkles.

"Are the sprinkles sugar-free?" the other one asked.

Give me a break. That's the weirdest excuse for a guilty pleasure I've ever heard.

But then again, I'm not a freshman anymore, and I don't look like it either. I've grown two inches and my high school clothes are a thing of the past. But mainly, as I've gotten older I've reached the point where I'm just not willing to obsess over my weight anymore.

So fine, I don't have the flesh-free body of Paris Hilton -- but then again, very few of my male counterparts have Brad Pitt's Fight Club abs. And that's okay. I find them damn sexy anyway.

But guys do seem to have their own little set of body image issues.

During the Swimsuit Competition at Alpha Phi's King of Hearts fundraiser Saturday night -- which I thoroughly enjoyed, gentlemen -- I didn't see any fraternity brothers sucking in their stomachs. In fact, most of these boys added a little something to their swimsuits to give themselves extra bulk in the right places.

Well, at least girls don't have to worry about that.

And later, as I watched a bunch of guys pounding down Budweisers during a shirtless game of Beirut, it just slipped out:

"I like a man who drinks beer," I said. "It takes a real man to enjoy something as fatty as beer."

"What the hell are you talking about?" one of them said, crushing his fifth can. "It's just beer."

That was the smartest conversation I've had in a while.

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