LARGETONY Blog

Today’s entry was inspired by a post by Joe.My.God. He wrote in his blog about how a group of his friends would attach descriptive words to some of the other’s names in order to distinguish those of the same name from each other. It made me think back several years ago when I was invited, through a friend, to a dinner party of about 12 guys or so. The guy who was hosting was pretty well-off and had a nice heated pool. Late in the evening (waiting at least the requisite half hour after eating) some people started playing in the pool. We were all expecting it to just be dinner, so we were not told to bring swim trunks. Of the ones who got in the water, some guys stripped down and just jumped in, some went in in their underwear. I love being in the water, but I wasn’t really ready for the skinny dipping thing or see-thru underwear. So, I, and a few others, borrowed trunks from the host and his partner.

I’m sure that, given what you can find on my website, you think I would have no problem being naked in front of people. I love to be naked. I love the freedom, but I’m sort of weird about it. I’ll try to explain. It’s like if I know that someone will see me naked and I see them see me naked, I get uncomfortable and self-conscious. With the pictures on the website, sure I know that people will see them, but I can’t see the people looking at me, so it’s no big deal. But that’s not the end of my idiocyncracies about nudity. (My own nudity, that is. I have no problem with other people’s nudity). Here’s where it really gets weird. If someone just happens to see me (or some part of me) in a situation where I normally would be naked, them I’m cool. Like if I’m in the shower at the gym and someone else walks in and decides to check it out, then I let them. I let them get a good look. As long as they want. Or if I see a guy trying to get a look up the leg of my shorts, then I’m likely to spread my knees and give him something to really look at. I guess what it boils down to is that I feel weird just throwing my nakedness in front of someone, but if they come looking for it, then “here’s an eyeful.”

So we were all playing in the pool and having a geneally good time. The guys who were naked were sneaking under and “pants-ing” (or I guess in this case “trunks-ing”) those of us with coverage. Eventually they got to me too. And by that time I was comfortable with the situation, even though I was pretty much staying underwater from the chest down. I couldn’t stay all night that way, so the time came when I had to get out of the water bare-assed or live the remainder of my life all pruny.

Fast forward several minutes and a guy named Robbie has me cornered in the kitchen (in just a towel. Me…. not Robbie. He was fully clothed.). He had been drinking and was real chatty. He had been sitting out by the pool and had watched me climb out from behind. In the kitchen, he said to me, “Son, I knew you were a tall one, but when you got out of that pool I just wondered, ‘Lord, does that boy ever end?’ And then you turned around and my God!” Then he gushed, “Son, you just don’t know. You just don’t know.”

A couple of months later I was with RJ and we ran into Robbie and a friend of his. Robbie introduced us saying that I was Tony from the party. His friend said “Oh, you’re Steve’s Tony.” (Steve and Tony were a couple at the same party). “Oh, no,” Robbie said. “He’s large Tony.” It was apparant that Robbie had told his friend about my hang. His friend sort of glanced below my belt and quietly replied, “Oh.”

And that is where the moniker “Large Tony” was born. Ever since, to a small circle of pool buddies, and now, to a much bigger circle of web surfers, that is how I am known.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2005 at 11:18 pm and is filed under being tony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.