I believe that this *began* as a music post--someone was concerned about being judged by appearances when performing, and others replied to confirm his/her belief or negate his/her fears--

and then others started posting to tell the ORIGINAL posters that they must be fat, lazy slobs...

I find that amusing, as I said, in this forum of many words and few pictures. The exact rotundity of the posters is neither here nor there--the idea was to determine if others had felt slighted because of their size. As it turns out--some have had bad experiences, some haven't. I have never seen anything in the folk music world to even hold a candle to the extreme 'appearance-consciousness' and weight-phobia of the pop music world!

I'm sure that everyone who has posted here is not extremely overweight--I know I'm not! However, you don't have to be morbidly obese to have people make rude comments...

I've found my local folk music & dance groups to be (as I mentioned!) quite open & friendly to everyone. We have singers & instrumentalists of all sizes--we have contra dancers of all sizes, as well. As in any group, I think that diversity only adds interest, so I'd say we're lucky to be the way we are.

BTW, JoiningSoon, did you join? Did you come back to read any of this? Did you get scared away when folks started accusing you of eating too much sugar and not exercising enough? I hope not...

Denise:^)

FYI, "G"--Lots of my posts are under "Guest,denise:^)" because I originally started posting on a computer while on vacation (not mine!)...and, then, too, some of them had a wink ;^) instead of a smile :^), so they'd be listed differently, too... Guess I'm a poster of many faces! --denise, with an "s"