Seriously. Often on fitness forums you come across people with too much body fat who decide to bulk. What the fuck? You can still lose bodyfat and not have muscle. That's okay. That should be done first (even though it helps to have muscle to burn BF) You can't just shoot straight for swole and completely stretch out your skin and destroy it.  As a rule of thumb, if you have love handles of any kind, you are FAT and you should not be bulking.