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I scrolled past his profile on Hinge, not because I wasn’t interested, but because I didn’t think I stood a chance. I’m a 5-foot-10 English major who, despite thousands of salads and ab crunches, has yet to lose the stubborn lower belly fat that prevents me from having fun at pool parties.

He had tens of thousands of Instagram followers and was friends with other disconcertingly attractive gay men my friends and I dubbed “the Instagays.” A retired college athlete with blond hair, a killer smile and washboard abs, he was the exact image of what I wasn’t. The only thing we seemed to have in common was that we were gay.

So when he invited me to connect on Hinge, I was stunned. I paced

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