Belly up to the bar, boys

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/fashion/13POTBELLY.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=hip%20to%20be%20round&st=cse?no_interstitial

So, evidently, the latest hipster dude thing is to sport a Buddha belly. And not a Keanu Reeves Little Buddha belly. A "rub me for luck" Buddha belly.

Oh-kay.

Have you ever noticed how few boy trends have anything to do with being better looking? Guys do things for their own inscrutable reasons. Just cause they think they're cool. Trucker hats? Yeah. No chick but a lot lizard is digging on that look. Giant cargo shorts with broke ass sandals? No. Sorry. No. And the whole George Clooney haircut back in the 90s, that went around so fast that it could have been used by the CDC as a study in epidemiology? On some men it was fine. Not as fine as on Mr. Clooney, but it was not a complete disaster. On other men, it was not helping.

The whole metrosexual thing would appear to be an exception. But what started out as a tendency to leave the house in clothes that fit, with his hair combed and fingernails clean (oooo, baby) quickly devolved into an obsessive level of silverback grooming that was no longer attractive. At least not to women.

And now a pot belly. But you know one of them did it, then they all did. For whatever wave of the zeitgeist the boys are surfing this summer. But you know it ain't about the ladies. Because, while some girls do dig a "prosperous" tum, it's not the general rule. Most gals can work with a potbelly, or around it. But going out to look for it? Not so often.

And I've never heard of women as a group gaining weight to be trendy. Never. Not once. But it looks like these guys are just grabbing a couple extra Miller High Life's and letting it all hang out for fashion. What are they? DeNiro?

Of course, this could all just be a mis-identified trend. It could just be that after years of tensile stress from being in skinny jeans, the fat on these guys may have worked its way up the stove pipe legs, and out the waistband. Had to erupt somewhere.