What do men want?

Hi guys. I posted this on the CA board just now. Thought I might post it here as well. I had the Goals system introduced here to help members get what they want, but hooking up with and supporting one another. Have you seen / used the goal system? I was browsing through it today and noticed some of the more common themes. We'll be launching a next version of this system (so stay tuned). Check out some of your peers. Know what you want and good luck getting what you want! Do you want to................ Have abalanced Life (not all work) http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,friends/?pkid=401&key=92c 6490d7faecfb6184c4c72cff61f2f Weigh less than my husband http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,all/?pkid=437&key=6e645d2 e91ae273560125f774148b075 So, any "Weigh less than my wife" goals here?? Weigh under 200 lbs http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,all/?pkid=1276&key=5ad817 43ba12b136b25a4e1720528aab Exercise on a regular basis http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,all/?pkid=232&key=219ebc6 0695c718f9ba6866e94ea05c4 Get more organized at home http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,all/?pkid=762&key=06d5a0a dac8adfdb30a857bb835e6bbd Go out in public without being ashamed of how I look http://obesityhelp.com/goals/uzone,goals/action,viewGoal/tab,all/?pkid=1236&key=246b86 7340f201d7f8d2f2e4a592b055 

E: What I want is the men's forum exactly the way it is. I use it every day to give and recieve support. I do not go to any other forum's. Please be aware of just how powerfull and important it is. I have discovered so much about myself and my fellow WLS men that it is awsome ! I hear from men in my local face to face community that local support meetings become live info-mercials.. with us as the "pimps" that they also need a place to share and vent their individual successes and challanges... I send every single one of them to the men's forum.. they have all thanked me !! So I thank you and the entire OH community for this valuable resource. Kev-

I have seen the goals system and thought it was interesting. Publically declaring your goals is a great way to keep yourself accountable. It also gives you the opportunity for support with others who share common goals. Myself, I like to keep my goals held close to my vest. Writing them down, reviewing them often and measuring your progress is imparative for most in achieving their goals, myself included. However, I have a "thing" about keeping mine private, or only sharing them with people directly involved in their achievement. JP 

Excellent. Interesting... What if ... (I'm asking because I'm writing this stuff up this weekend).... there was this public universe of people who didn't mind sharing that they all had a certain goal and that the system automatically grouped them together (ex: "to see my belly button!", or whatever.)   The general public would only see people publicly declaring their goals. However...  reading from your "or only sharing them with people directly involved in their achievement" ... what if anyone who had themselves entered that goal into their system were able to see an additional set of semi-private people, only interested in sharing their goals with other who had the same goal? That would be a different type of privacy feature. Right now all the goals (did you know this?) had three settings: "Public" / "Private" / "Friends Only".  Taking a step back, if you didn't know that before, would knowledge of the last two settings motivate you to use the system?   Secondly, would that fourth "let others see me if they've listed the same goal" option be of any value? Note -- not that I'm trying to get you or anyone to use this system one way or another per se. [Heck -- I haven't even myself gotten around to re-building my profile!].  Rather, I just happened to be writing up the specs for it when I noticed some posts from this board and thought I'd share what was on my mind. -EAK'07

Paul... .. your analogies and insight were such a great read!  Would you be interested in writing for OH somewhere? Probably not much interest in the particular theme of yours above outside of this forum, but you're pretty articulate in relaying concepts. OHMag, I know, had some men's stuff, but I'm not sure I've heard one way or another of any regular column. Perhaps you and Dx (and/or others?) might want to put something together. "The Locker Room" comes to mind. I'm feeling in your writing.... WMD-grade world out there. What a pain in the rear (or worse) I'm thinking to be subjected to such a feeling of periodic helter-skelter drive-by spewing. I remember the high school locker room having approximately one entrance, which was also the exit... way down the hall. Kinda safe feeling -- though I always took it for granted at the time. And then, abruptly, one envisions raiding pom-pom squads racing through with estrogen-tipped spears, trying to march people out because not enough people had assembled on the cheerleading field outside. Yich!  I'd hate to feel that way, if I'm understanding the feeling correctly.  For my part, thinking back, I always did feel a little "out of place" in certain ways around so many of the people here (I started out here a guy nerd in his 20's building stuff for an audience that was mostly 20 years older, 85% of the other gender and with many other differences). It didn't phase me much, though, on one hand because I kind of felt out of place more or less everywhere in life. And, in that, I suppose, more than anything else I felt very much at home. I didn't have obesity personally in my life, but I spent most of my years spending most of my time dealing, in all kinds of ways, with other people not seeing me for who I knew I was. Anything that connected with the theme of liberating human potential, helping people become more of who they are and who they can become... that's really powerful for me. I can't say quite how many months it will be, but I'll be happy once we're finally done with some final infrastructure overhaul to be able to do the yahoo groups thing. My original goal was that by 2003 anyone would be able to start their own group here and keep it public, private, open, by invitation only, etc -- their choice. On the other hand, there are a lot of things I'd planned by 2003, think of it, that I'm still looking forward to, but, oh well, that's the challenge, isn't it. Forum owners should be able to upload word/excel/pdf/whatever up to lots of megabytes.  What else.... underline... We have that in our content management system, I saw... hmm.. three editors here.. but neither #2 nor #3 seem to have underline. (I wonder what happens when one pastes underlined text from, say, word here.) I'll add underlining to the list. Spell checking... same case. I rejected the english system of spelling once, or twice. Or 5 times. Didn't suit me. By the time I was about... about 30 years old, I finally figured to give it up and conform. Strange, though, I swear that MS Word trains people how to spell subliminally. When I back space to correct a typo, it's subconsious. Ditto for mispellings now; my fingers don't let the red underlining last for a few milliseconds. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions! Regardng the draffic-drumming stop-ins... do you get that much here? (Sorry if I sound a bit like a dufus here, not having been around much; I'm a little embarassed actually. Dx had invited me, but I was always too tied up I feared getting started on stuff and then making a mess of things if I got pulled away). I know that there is (or at least was) a sticky post feature that posts to all forums. People stop by here trying to drum up interest in other things often in particular? Regarding feature/content publicity, I'm working on getting all features screenable, so that they can work "inside" any particular area or forum, without users ever having to go outside the forum to make use of them. Data supplied could be done so to show up either/only according to however the user wants (public to all, public to only me, public only to friends, public only to members of specific forums). I'm looking forward to that. The reason I was asking about goals was because the current thing is absolutely silly/stupid as-is, but a good start. Not terribly useful for 50 people, for example (of whatever gender) to each have the same goal, but because they each described it in slightly different ways (ex: "spend more time playing with my kids" vs. "spend more time to play with my kids") it winds up as 50 little goals, each with one huge member count of a whopping 1.  Also, even for cases (out of 3,000 goals, I could only find about 10) where the current system is actually able to show a _group_ of people -- say, as in, like, maybe, kindof, perhaps just a little social networking, maybe?? -- you wind up on the page (well, I do, at least) and say "ok... nice.... and.. .. and now what?".  No message board... or, more importantly, no further statement of detail or meaning or status of why the goal was important to them or where they stood on it or anything else.  And this goes on for 3,000 goals.  Part of the reason I was posting was to see if I was the only one who thought the whole thing was starting to look at least a little like some twisted practical joke.  (I can never be sure sometimes;  as often as not, I actually AM in my own world).  In any case, I'm the one who designed the system. It was only a Phase I (started out as a "new years resolutions" kind of theme) and I was surprised how long it wound up staying out there collecting all these onesies and a few twosies here and there. So, when I was posting, my primary feeling was one of wondering if I was on the right track at all as I was writing up my Phase II specs (that have a lot to do with helping people -- who might be interested -- in forming groups of similarly interested people. Also, at another level, it's kind of silly to be driving a company withou staying very closely in tune with that people are really wanting and striving for. Some opportunity, perhaps for more targeted service via better awareness of what peopl want.  Your forum-specific privacy-related feedback is great. Thanks. Regarding driving additional traffic / advertising, that reminds me... I'm having a type of mid(?) life crisis these days (or maybe its just that time of month for me?) where "new" starts off as "alien" and, well, _stays_ as "alien".  [Could I be getting.... o l d ??]  Take these google ads for example. The only thing I hate, at a type of gut level, more than google ads is the face that by now I've gotten used to them -- everywhere. Or, more to the point, I've gotten used to being annoyed by them -- everywhere, so it kind of lingers there as an annoyance that's there, but I'm so used to it that I don't notice it, but that doesn't make it go away, and, even if I'm used to it, that doesn't make it any less "alien".  Thankfully, that goal system was google-free and banner free (from what I saw).  {No idea why there in particular -- I have a team of people who puts things up and together.} Question -- thinking about one of your statements above....  would you be interested in a "men's subset", if not outright "men's forum" within every other forum here?  Ex: a "men's forum" within your state board?  That type of multidirectional subsetting can get somewhat mindboggling pretty quick (for me at least -- but that's easy to do) considering the different subsets. Ex: a DS subforum for the TX board. A Men's subforum of the TX board. A post op subforum of a men's subforum within the RNY forum, etc, etc. Oh, I forgot earlier... regarding features.  Would you like tools here to help you hook up with every WLS support group known to man?  (I'll leave pun intention inferences to the reader). If so, that was something I started working on years ago. I hope to get around to it. I don't know if you knew but OH,Inc recently acquired OH Events & Chapters. There had been a small number of acquisition targets that had been on our horizon and that one hit Q1.  The acquision... acquision..... **** spell check please? ....  ok  ... acquire... so.. acquisition... my final answer... the thing brought some new resources and experience into the company and I'm excited to see where things will be going. Hopefully some of my original plan will make its way to reality this year. The core value of this company, in my mind all along, has been the power of the web site to put stuff together automatically. 2005 and 2006 were veeeeeeeeeeeery long and dark years as the entire IT infrastructure was operated on. (Kind of like building a cement slab under your two story shack while you're still entertaining guests in that shack), so a whole heck of a lot of often very well intended people inefficiency came to kind of rule the day. Fortunately we're over that hump. No telling what the next completely unexpected humps will be, but at least I can see stuff being pretty damn exciting looking ahead if at least 2 out of every 7 things goes well as planned. Speaking of which...  (planning)....  you're pretty darn insightful above. ok....  7 months before I was born, I sprouted testicals and they masculinized my female-by-default phenotype and that included my corpus collosum that wound up assuming the characteristically less integrative stance, and so, over 30 years later,  when I'm trying to have a conversation on the phone with my parents and my wife is frantically -- deparately trying to signal me about what I AM supposed to say to my parents about getting together for dinner versus what I'm NOT supposed to say, I don't have the slightest clue what the %^&*I(( she's trying to say and I have to simply put the phone down in frustration and say "Open your mouth and TELL me... what do you want? I don't read _this_" -- I say as I convulse some lopsided gesticulative fling.  Aka -- a typical male.  I can definitely multi-task, but definitely not in that particular type sensory polymodal way. To the point. Goal oriented. It comes naturally... that left hemisphere thing.  So, if someone were to ask me my goals... would that be easier for me or harder for me, than if I were female?  And, is this intuitive?  I'm feeling a lot of levels to that one.  Comes naturally, therefore doesn't need to be coached or coaxed and not much interest in being coached or coaxed on the matter.  On the other hand, comes naturally, therefore could better relate to it and therefore have more of an interest in it.  I could see it both ways. "Revealing goals reduces competitive advantage".  Makes me wonder...  within my own company... going through the history of all the staff I've had, of which people (male vs female) were most versus least receptive to communicating and discussing company or department goals...  not sure if I notice a gender bias there, but the statement makes me wonder.. (We're in the middle of some major planning at work this month). Anyway, more again another time. Again, thanks for the insight.  I'm a bit sleep deprived here today, so I'm sure the above could have benefitted from a coherence-checker. -EAK'07

Eric, thank you once again for OH. It has been a trememndous blessing and encouragement to me.  I echo some of the sentiments expressed here already.  The Men's board is all I need along with the profiles and before/after photos.  On this board we have the weekly weigh in, there are exercise check-in groups.  If anything, it would be nice to have a couple of goal threads on this site, not other parts of OH.  Most of us gravitate to this board because we cannot get male-specific support and encouragement anywhere else locally or online.  It is extremely frustrating to sit in mixed meetings and hear that everyone's problems are because their dad didn't show them enough love.  Understanding the past is helpful if your goal is to understand the past, but if you want to change the future you have to look forward.  The guys in this forum get this.  My preference is to keep things within the forum, rather wasting time trying to find the other forums.  I don't have time for that. Thanks again, Greg

Eric, I’m so glad to see you checking in here. Like many of the guys who visit this page, you’ve received invitations form me. I’m a bit of "The Men’s Forum Pimp,"  for a various reasons…. When I first started reading AMOS in ’02, and even when becoming a participant in ’03 There were so few men on the site, typically lost out on the estrogen sea that is this site. Like most men, I wondered- "Where are the guys?" Which led me to check into Male percentages for Bariatric procedures. In ’03, the standard figure given by Docs - (or at least the Baptist Memorial Healthcare organization) was-- "Men make up 12% of the people seeking WLS." By ’05 the standard reply given by the folks at Baptist Memorial Healthcare was "19%." I would risk to bet, that with more and more successful post-op men being out in the local communities and sharing their "stories" with others, the numbers by the end of ’07 will be 25% or higher. So much of the experience that is shared on the Main board is specifically "for the gals." When "The Men’s Board" was established in June ’05, at the same time as the "Grads Board," Both were in need of enough ‘traffic’ to keep them viable and valuable Forums. In the first months, both Boards were logging about 50+ post/replies a day some more, some less. Both were on their way to being very valuable. It would make sense that the High traffic of the Main Board would naturally transition to the Grads Board and keep it an active valuable forum. However, presently, the "Grads Forum" logs approx. 25 post/replies per day (or less) whereas the Men’s Forum typically has 150+ per day. I think this is the result of the shared sub-interests grouped under one forum, which speaks directly to your question of "Shared Interests/Goals." For example, the Grads forum, by it’s very nature, does not traffic in information about selecting a procedure, finding a surgeon, dealing with transitioning to solid foods, etc… The "Topics" are somewhat limited to "Finding a Plastic Surgeon," and "Bounce-back Re-gain." There is also a general perception/tendency on the OH site (recently) of the "De-Valuing" of the older-further-out-Post-Ops in favor of the more "Chatty" MySpace-ish posts and replies about family, spouse, girl friends, etc… There has been (in the last 6 months) a literal Migration of Grads off to other sites Because they feel snubbed and de-valued by the community in general and "Member Services" specifically. On the contrary, The Men’s Forum, where one would expect to see less growth, has continued expanding it’s participation because it can share experience on a near limitless range of topics. It is difficult to actually have any subject be considered "Off-Topic" here, when adding the phrase- "For Men." "Advancing diet?-for Men?" "Movies of Interest?-for Men?" " Hobbies? –for Men?" etc… As to whether or not the "Obesity Community" values these guys? It’s also of little to no impact. This Forum is (for the most part) left alone to pass information and experience peer to peer without The Sorority-esque personality clashes that plague the Main-Board and that Member services spends So much of their time having to ‘De-Tangle’ with nothing but the TOS and personal judgement calls. Under the umbrella of "Just us Guys," older-further out-post-ops can pass on their experiences and newer Pre-ops can revel in small daily victories without the Fem-cultural implications and social "one-ups-manship" that is found in the typical Female Group Dynamic. The lack of "Cattiness" can not be overstated in explaining the successes of this forum. I presented a "seminar" at the Lexington OH Convention on just this issue- http://obesityhelp.com/forums/men/a,messageboard/action,repl ies/board_id,5479/cat_id,5079/topic_id,3189221/ As well as a study/survey comparing the differences in how men and women interact/experience the Process of WLS. That survey of Bariatric Surgeons/Clinics yielded some valuable info about Men. As a rule, we do indeed reach goal weights much quicker than our female counterparts. We tend to have higher complication rates- But specifically due to the fact that we tend to wait far longer to address the health issues of Obesity prior to seeking medical solution. The survey also uncovered one remarkable difference between men and women specifically about support groups. Men, as a rule, tend to "drop-out" of any structured support group system at a near 10 to 1 rate over the Gals. Even though Men show far greater resulting benefits to overall health from bariatric procedures, we often stop participating in "after-care" due to the fact that most support groups are "femi-centric" and follow the "Breast-Cancer-Survivor" paradigms already in place at most hospital systems. It is ironic that Men, the very group that tends to benefit Most from the Bariatric Community’s ability to pass peer to peer experience, are the one’s that are least addressed by the typical support group system. I have tried to utilize this forum and the speaking presentations I give at various Bariatric Seminars and Support groups to off set that fact little bit by little bit. The idea of ‘sub-groups’ dedicated to specific interests and Goals, can be quite beneficial to the growth of the main board, particularly if those can remain "clumped" so as to not be thousands of individual goals but groups of shared goals. But I also think such ‘sub-grouping’ would diffuse the inherent strength of this Forum. Perhaps Scott’s suggestion of a "Men’s FAQ’s" Page, maybe in the "Content" section of this Forum, would be very valuable. Presently the "Content" link here provides only- "Men’s Forum" on February 16, 2007 read more… (followed by) Welcome to the ObesityHelp Men's Forum. This seems in great contrast to the "Exercise & Fitness Forum" which has extreme "Content." http://obesityhelp.com/forums/fitness/ But typically that Forum has about 10 to 12 post/replies per day. (and that, even with dedicated Daily posters) The "Exercise/Fitness Forum" arrived whole and planned at it’s inception, while this Forum began under the "old-system" and has developed prior to "Design." As a result, it seems to offer the sort of "More than You Ever Wanted to Know" content that may overwhelm and make for a more "passive-reader" interface than this forum. I can’t say enough how happy I am to see you dropping in here and posting/replying to get a sense of how the "users" are using the various features while working to improve those features. As AMOS continues it’s evolution under your direction, I hope the "Men-WLS nexus" will be given the attention that this growing and valuable aspect of the WLS Community warrants. Some other aspects of "The Guys" that might be useful ‘back-burner’ info….When considering "Want Men Want?" An area/thought that I think Paul touched on in a way--- The vast majority of the men here are still professionals with less time for the online life than their ‘house-wife’ counterparts on the Main Boards seem to have. We tend to have our hands on and make the household decisions about allocating more disposable income. Whereas literally hundreds of main board gals may be interested in "free-Samples" from one of the many "Bari-Specific" product suppliers that advertise here, the men tend to be more likely to just purchase a product based on a trusted recommendation then decide whether or not they like it. The women may have the market cornered on ‘fussy-shopping’ but guys will tend to impulse buy and then rationalize it to their wife later. :-) Likewise, (and this is an observation shared by some of the guys at the Lexington Convention) Men tend to pass on info or recommendation for products that "worked for them" in an un-alloyed directness that is stronger than seen among the ladies. For example- At a meeting, guys are likely to say- "Here, try this stuff, it’s great and cheap." And then hand an Ostrim stick to several of the guys in the group. No thought to the cost of the products, just ‘sharing.’ The gals are more likely to mention a few items that they tried in the past and talk in terms of "free-samples." Sort of that same- ["I’ll get the check.." at the restaurant] macho activity that is in contrast to "Ladies at Lunch" splitting the bill 12 ways and even sub-splitting a shared desert onto multiple bills at the chagrin of the poor waiter. Yes? I’d go so far as to say that trusted testimonials have more impact on the "Men as customer" than on the women and that Men will more readily drop more cash than the women if they perceive value in a particular product. Perhaps the Marketing folk could utilize that angle? A far fetched example would be "The Online Support Meeting- Sponsored by GNC." Sort of the "GNC-Support Chat!" Much the same as Nascar or the long tradition in sports of "Busch" Stadium and "Wrigley" Field. Just a thought. I think men are less "offended" by straight-forward commercialism and don’t need to think of OH as a "Non-profit Family" in order to find it valuable. I think most of us are comfortable with a "Business is Business" approach. One other area that Scott touched on- Banned Members? Obviously if people are disruptive to the day to day exchange of peer-to-peer experience, then they must be managed in some manner for "the good of the whole." Yet, in the last few months, many of the further out (3 to 4 year+) post-ops have been "excommunicated" from the OH message Boards. As a member watching from the outside, it seems counter-productive to the ongoing value of OH. There ‘seems’ to be a ‘personal’ agenda driving these bannings rather than an even application of the TOS. It ‘seems’ that Member Services is responding on a personal an emotional level rather than an ‘even-handed’ application of policy. The message boards have at their very core a certain amount of "Personality or Celebrity Driven" attraction. Some posts by frequent posters are sure to receive more views and replies than other threads. When disagreement or tension arises between various "high-profile members" then result, in the past years, was just more activity on the site. People would clam down, continue and agree to disagree. Here of late, some of those disagreements are between high-profile members who work within the organization and those who are just members. The result has been the banning of otherwise valuable contributors to the content of this site. Several "Parallel WLS Support Message Boards" have either sprung up or had remarkable increases in membership as a result of others following banned members away from AMOS to places that are not seen to be "Personality Driven." Scott felt strong enough about such an incidence as to go "Off-Topic" here at the slight chance that "The Big Guy at the Top" could help alleviate just one of these instances. I won’t wade into this topic here, except under the umbrella of "What Men Want," I think we "want" a fairly open forum for the exchange of experiences, free from to much filtering. As a High-Profile contributor to the Men’s Forum, I was asked at the Lexington Conference by some of the OH admin folk if I thought this Forum needed (or would be benefited by) the inclusion of a ‘waiver-page’ as an entrance to this forum. Sort of like the one that the "Sex-B4 & After" Forum utilizes. The discussions here can often be blunt, gruff and direct. That, -and from time to time penises will be discussed!:-) Humor can run to the ‘off-color’ side from time to time. My response was this… The nature of the Men’s Forum is that it self-regulates fairly well. Perhaps it is the "Male-Group-Dynamic," but the typical "drama" and attempts at flaming that can crop up on the main-board, are (99.9% or the time) absent from this forum. I felt, and still do, that such a ‘waiver-page’ would only serve to scare-off those who are more conservative and embolden those who are prone to more outrageous and off-color remarks. One of the attributes of this board that others in this thread may have been referring to by their comments of- "If it Ain’t Broke, then Don’t Fix it," was the aspect of inclusion on the Forum. The very fact that Ministers and Strip Club Owners, Factory Workers and Lawyers, Openly Gay Hairdressers and Surely Bikers, can coexist very harmoniously is a testament to the unique experience that this board/forum has become. Just some guys who have or had very deep navels sharing their experiences. Filtering or "Moderating out" - un-popular, contrary or simply blunt responses because they may seem "Un-Supportive" would be a definite detriment to this forum. I would venture to say that this unique aspect of this forum / message board, would benefit the rest of the OH message board policy as well. The "Don’t Pick at It- It’ll Never Heal" school of thought, that serves this forum, would help with some of the "Inflammation" seen on the Main Board. Men, would naturally find the rest of the forums of OH more useful and valuable if that were always the case. Just my Thoughts….

Thanks for taking me up on my invitation. As to a "General message" that would be generated to all men joining OH? So far, I have tried to serve that function as best as possible.:-) About a year and a half ago I very quickly posted to some guy out on the Main-Board---- ----------------------------------------------------- "I just wanted to drop by an Invitation. It’s great to see other men out here. We make up such a small percentage (12%) Of the people having Weight Loss Surgery, But tend to reach our goal weights quicker and with less Or at least Different hassles than the Gals Due to Male physiology. Drop by the Men’s Message Board And check out what other men like you are going through. It’s a diverse make up of Dads, Singles, Older, younger, etc… Pre-Ops, Post-Ops new and some Old (at Goal) Post-Ops. Lap-Banders, RNY’ers DS, etc… Great bunch of guys with the mutual understanding That WLS for Men can be a totally different Journey. Stop by to add your questions, advice, opinions, and info at- http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/men/ It’s Great to know we’re not so alone, And that there are others pulling for you. Hope to see you ‘Round the Boards! Best Wishes- Dx" ------------------------------------------------------------ To date, I’d estimate I’ve Copy/pasted that same message to some 400+ Men. (I never got around to re-writing it.) Thank-you for dropping in here, and for the AMOS site in general. The content provided by these folks over the years has helped so many make the transition from Life-Threatening Obesity to Healthy Futures. I hope OH and this Forum in particular, continues to improve, grow and aid in the lives of more people. Do drop back by as often as possible? I think Men are a rapidly increasing component to the WLS-Community and one that has been ‘under-served’ in the past. Well, I’ve nearly reached my usual Long-azzed reply length… And I’m off to finish some drawings…. Thanks So Much! Best Wishes- Dx

"I just wanted to drop by an Invitation. It’s great to see other men out here. We make up such a small percentage (12%) Of the people having Weight Loss Surgery, But tend to reach our goal weights quicker and with less Or at least Different hassles than the Gals Due to Male physiology. Drop by the Men’s Message Board And check out what other men like you are going through. It’s a diverse make up of Dads, Singles, Older, younger, etc… Pre-Ops, Post-Ops new and some Old (at Goal) Post-Ops. Lap-Banders, RNY’ers DS, etc… Great bunch of guys with the mutual understanding That WLS for Men can be a totally different Journey. Stop by to add your questions, advice, opinions, and info at- http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/men/ It’s Great to know we’re not so alone, And that there are others pulling for you. Hope to see you ‘Round the Boards! Best Wishes- Dx" What the hell?  Mine was coppied and pasted.  I thought it was unique; just for me.  I thought I recieved a special invite.  This 18 months has been a sham!!!  Scott