The difficult task of gaining weight

IMAGINE YOU ARE me for a moment.

You’re about 5-foot-10 and weigh less than most women who are shorter than you in height. You have a small appetite. You have legs and arms the size of broomsticks. You can sometimes — if you look hard enough — see your own ribcage.

In other words, you’re a skinny dude and, therefore — quick! — someone needs to feed you a burger before you die.

This is the physique I have to live with on a daily basis. You may think this is an exaggeration, but some people assume that I’m malnourished. That’s not a laughing matter, especially when your favorite thing to do is walk around shirtless. At home.

But I’m happy with the way I am. That’s all that should matter, right?

Right.

At the same time, there’s nothing wrong with making improvements to your body, as long as it’s for the sake of your health and to feel good.

Unfortunately, people always wondered if I have an eating disorder, as if I want to be the male version of Kate Moss. Even in my dreadful high school years, friends joked that I have the perfect costume for Halloween — a starving child.

And you’d think people would have matured from this phase.

Nope. Last week, I went to Modesto to visit my family including an uncle who was visiting from Boston, someone who I haven’t seen in about a decade.

The first words out of his mouth are, “Do you have an eating disorder?”

“No,” I told him. Sadly, he didn’t believe me.

During the second week of this semester, I introduced myself to my recreation class along with an announced goal.

“I want to go rock climbing.”

“You have the physique of a rock climber,” my professor said. “What are you? About a buck-40?” I shook my head. “One-twenty-five?” I shook my head again.

“I’m 115,” I said.

I can still hear the class sigh in unison.

And, of course, I’ve been teased. This goes back to the days when I got picked last for sports games during recess because my small arms didn’t look like they could carry a ball. This goes back to the days when my weak arms couldn’t move an inch across the monkey bars. And on and on.

But those days are over.

I have taken steps to gain more weight, but no one really knows what a skinny dude like me has to go through. There are pity looks in the employees’ eyes whenever I go into a nutritional store to buy weight-gaining products. The gym is a hostile environment when you’re a skinny dude trying to curl a dumbbell and there’s about a handful of guys with 35-inch pythons waiting for you to get done. I just want them to understand that I’m trying to get buff so one day I can accomplish my one true-life goal: to go bowling without a shirt on.

I’m getting there, though.

But it’s just unfortunate that I have a passion for men’s interest magazines like no other, which badly makes me want to buy expensive ties to only wear once and work out until I become the exact replica of Brad Pitt.

Then again, is this the reason why I want to gain more weight? Or is it for the sake of feeling healthy? Or is it because one day I will go bowling shirtless?

Editor’s note: In the past two weeks, Chhun has gained exactly 3.8 pounds.

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