Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

Here is an email I received from a friend today:

well as a attention whore you should be pretty happy. bunch of pics of you on my new site. plus i think you're on nicoles site, or her brochure. oh and pics of you are published in a moto mag, page 18:
http://content.yudu.com/Atwiy/Riders/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ridersreview.com%2F

Am I really that obvious of an attention whore? Just cause I have been a photo model on a jiu jitsu site, an acupuncture clinic's advertisements, a learn to ride motorcycles website and in a few articles as well.

Oh, and I was on hotornot.com for like 5 years too(rated as a 9.2 out of 10). Ok ok ok, I like myself. Is that so wrong?

I think it all stems from my childhood. Don't laugh! I was an athletic kid, tough and not small. Then 6th grade hit and with it a year long fight of illness that eventually turned into hospitalization for Crohns disease. And that killed my growth and development right when it should have been starting.

At one time I was told I would be about 5' 2" and 99lbs most likely as an adult. No offense to any guy that size, but it crushed my ego and personality to be the big kid, the tough kid who won fights to being the sickly kid who couldn't do anything for years.

In PE in school I was always last in running around the track. My steroids gave me horrible acne as a teen. I couldn't do a single pull up until my 20's. While a Boy Scout I had to be rescued from the 100 meter swim test.

Constant illness, hospitalizations and multiple surgeries just killed me. I was 5' 6" and 123lbs when I got out of high school. I did go on two dates the day I turned 16 and was always able to make friends with girls, but just the image of being a strong, virile, tough attractive male never was in me.

Something changed sometime though in my 20's...... I started to mountain bike and rock climb. Girls actually started to let me know they thought I was attractive. My ability to flirt and such improved.

So to go from being almost always described as "a red headed Ethiopian" from 6th grade to 12th grade, when I finally got some muscles, some confidence and some attention..... Well, I just like it. Probably I actually crave it.

I love attention.
I love showing off.
I love being active and athletic in 'extreme' sports.
I love it when I get "checked out".
I love it when my jokes are laughed at.
I love it when I get 100 visits to my blog in a day, rather than 20.

I feel happy, healthy and relaxed. If being an "attention whore" (I know you were mostly joking) is part of it, I'm at peace with it.

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!