I was probably about 12 or 13 when I had a conversation with my step-grandfather in which he was telling me why he had married my grandmother. He was a farmer so he put it in farm terms. He said he liked a woman who looked like she could work in the fields all day, a robust, hardy woman who wasn’t thin and frail like so many women tended to be. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in describing what he liked about my grandmother, he was describing what I grew up to like myself. My wife grew up on a farm and would easily carry 50 lb. bags of feed, sometimes one bag on each shoulder. She is, as my step-grandfather would put it, robust and hardy. She played softball and would slam out homeruns when she was at bat. I love the way she’s built.

I understand and respect that you don’t like being called stocky, but it’s not meant as an insult. There are some of us who love that type of physique.