Mr. Fun Activist Receives an Earful From Ms. Not Amused

It might have been the mention of back rubs that hooked them, that brought pleas from women seeking introductions to the activist-in-search-of-a-mate I wrote about in this column last week. But it was his mention of how much his ideal mate should weigh that unhinged so many others.

“Fun Activist seeks Fun Activist,” reads the personal ad he likes to run. “Gives daily back rubs and cooks, too.” His requirements in a partner? Single, socially conscious, in her 40s and not overweight.

“He wants a soul mate, but only if she’s packaged properly,” one woman complained.

Another put it more bluntly: “What a jerk! . . . I hope he meets skinny bimbos that bore him to tears until he dies!”

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Perhaps it is a measure both of how desperate we are for companionship, and how sensitive we are about the issue of weight. How could the same column make so many women swoon and move so many others to outrage?

Some readers, none of whom wanted to be named here, sent detailed profiles, electronic photographs or copies of personal ads they’ve run. Others broached the prospect more tentatively: “I’ve never done this before. I never read personal ads or go to an Internet site to meet people. But I thought I’d take a chance,” one woman said. Many offered up daughters, sisters, co-workers, friends, for whom he sounded like “the perfect man.”

They seemed impressed with his social-justice agenda. “If this guy doesn’t seem [unreasonably] paranoid, if he doesn’t have duct tape on his shoes, if he’s passably good looking and presentable and seems like he’s capable of having a good time in addition to saving the world, please pass this along,” her letter requested.

I’d written the column about him after we met at a charity function. I didn’t notice any duct tape on his shoes but did find him a bit overzealous about his causes. The same qualities that made him seem like Prince Charming to some smacked of arrogance to others.

“For starters, he’s a narcissist,” said one colleague of mine, an attractive, single, socially conscious woman, who says she wouldn’t go near this guy. “Instead of wanting to meet a woman and discover the wonder that is she, he wants to order her like a medium-rare hamburger, with her qualities in place--interests and values that are exactly like his. He doesn’t want a partner or a companion. He wants a mirror.”

Others complained that his emphasis on weight eliminates half of his dating pool. After all, the average woman in this country is a size 14 . . . hardly obese, but not Kate Moss either.

“I don’t know a woman in her 40s who doesn’t feel like she’s carrying a few extra pounds,” one woman said. “I’ve got a full-time job, I’m raising kids, volunteer at the local shelter . . . who has time to work out at the gym?”

Mr. Fun Activist defends his preference for slim women as a matter of “physical chemistry.” Still, he admits “I winced when I saw it in print” last week in this column. “Now I’m saying ‘seriously overweight’ in my ad, which almost all women can live with,” he says.

Not exactly, my readers indicate. The issue is not how many extra pounds he’ll allow, but the notion that a woman’s physical dimensions carry as much weight in his romantic equation as the dimensions of her heart and soul.

“Your friend is facing a contradiction,” says Robyn Samuels, who describes herself as a happily married activist who spent years perusing personal ads but never would have answered his. “Most women who are politically conscious enough to be out fighting for the kinds of causes he describes are also conscious enough to be put off by a man’s prejudices about how a woman should look. . . . Even if he feels that way, you’d think he’d be sensitive enough not to put it in an ad.”

Or as a Pasadena woman said, “I think most of us [understand] that both men and women have certain standards of physical attractiveness. . . . But we expect men who want to save the world to be a bit more tolerant of women who don’t look like one of Charlie’s Angels.”

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In the seven days since the column ran, Mr. Fun Activist has gone out with several of the women who contacted me. No love match yet--although he has persuaded a few to campaign for “progressive” politicians he favors.

And many readers say that may be about the best he’ll get.

“There are thousands of single, energetic, activist women over 40 in this great city,” says Louise from Pasadena. “I know because I’m one of them. But there aren’t any who look like Cindy Crawford, live like Mother Teresa and are stupid enough to put up with the arrogant judgmental pontifications of . . . a self-superior jerk.”

But then again, never underestimate the power of a good massage. Said one reader who asked for a match, weight and political considerations aside: “I’d change the universe for a daily back rub.”

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Sandy Banks’ column runs on Tuesdays and Sundays. She’s at sandy.banks@latimes.com.