Furry Wants to Compete as World's Strongest Man

Hey Papabear!

I've had this dream of training hard to be a muscle gut in real life like one of my fursonas for about..... well a couple of years now. I want to get to the point of competing in the Canadian and World's Strongest Man competitions. My goal isn't to win (though that would be a sick bonus) but mainly just to compete. 

My immediate family and most of my friends supports this goal and keep reminding me that "Rome wasn't built in a day" in regards of training. The thing is, there's been people on FA that I chat with on messengers and at streams that give me a hard time because they think I should just stick with being a fat fur. My mate thinks it’s sexy and that I should continue to train for this goal; but honestly, it feels more like he's doing it for the looks than to support me in my dreams. I don't know how to react in these situations and I feel completely lost. My question (finally getting to the point) is: is it bad for me to ream out those people who tell me to give up on the dream/my mate for not supporting me the way I want him to? or is that going to make me out as a douche and people are going to start rejecting me? what do I do??

thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Sven Howling

* * *

Dear Sven,

It’s great to have goals and dreams like the one you have, and I wish you well in achieving them. You say that your immediate family and many friends already support you in your goals, so that is great! No matter what you do in life, there will be some people who don’t support or understand your goals, so there is nothing you can really do about that. Count yourself lucky that the vast majority do—you’re way ahead of the game!

As for your mate, well, at least he likes the idea of your being more muscular. It would be nice if he also supported your plans for competition, but at least he’s part of the way there. Does he not understand what you are trying to do and why? Maybe he just needs a little more input from you as to why you are doing this. You can sit him down and tell him that you would really love his support.

No, you shouldn’t “ream out” those who don’t support you because, yes, that would make you look like a douche. If someone doesn’t support you, you can just say, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’m really excited about my plans and I am going to carry them out with the help of my family and friends” and let them read between the lines. That’s all you need to say. Yelling at people for not supporting you just makes you look bitter and mean and is not very attractive. Be cool. ;-)

Good luck!

Papabear