Tomorrow, I'm joining a gym. I came to this realization today on a flight back from LA. You'd think it was being in LA, land of perfected plastic bodies, beautiful people (yeah right) and gym central that made me finally come to this conclusion. Alas, this is not the case. Instead, I was sitting on the plane, eating a bag of salt and pepper potato chips, drinking a Coke Zero, feeling my tummy grow millimeter by millimeter, and inconspicuously (I hope) scoping out the perfect arms of the guy next to me that made me suddenly say "I've had enough of this shit, get me some muscles now." It didn't help that after I had exhausted all of my in-flight literature, I opted to watch the Hoarders marathon on A&E. Are all hoarders morbidly obese? I mean, I get that as a natural extension of collecting things they'll never need (dolls, dead cats, Star Wars-themed Mr. Potato Heads, etc.) they would also collect food in their bellies and most notably, their necks, but really? Why they all gotta be so damn fat?
In truth, I have a fear of gyms that I don't like to talk about. Naturally, my public blog is where I feel most safe to discuss these fears in detail. But before we get there, let's cover a few of the important bases.
I do exercise. I love to run, and as an asthmatic, it is especially exciting for me because there literally was a day, sidelined during an indoor soccer game due to an asthma attack (nerd alert!), that I thought I'll never be able to run or do anything that required lung capacity beyond blowing out birthday candles. So, every time I run anything over a mile, I feel like I have not only completed a marathon, but lapped everyone in the process. Depending on the day, I even go home and do sit ups and push ups!! Someone give me a gold star!!
I was a gymnast when I was little. No, not a ballerina. A gymnast. Did I want to be a female gymnast? Sure, but what male gymnast didn't? The straight ones? Don't exist. No, he's gay too. Shut up. Because I know. I just do. Stop. No, you stop.
I went through fucking brutal workouts from the ages of seven through thirteen. Workouts that were two hours long 3-4 times a week with 30 minutes of conditioning. It was like Nazi Germany except not really at all. It was hardcore, and I had a ripped body to show for it. Now, there ain't nobody who was appreciating that right and tight body except the creepy pedophile neighbor up the street. I was like a mini-Arnold except without the Latina housekeeper mistress on the side. It was a shit ton of hard work for no good reason. I mean, I was state champion, but who really cares about that? No one is vain enough to appreciate hot little muscle bodies when you haven't hit puberty yet and if they are, I'm willing to bet they're Catholic priests.
After gymnastics, anything involving a gym became terrifying because I was a little gay boy. After gymnastics, I also got fat because I ate the same exact things I always was without the brutal, spirit-crushing workouts 3-4 times a week to burn my fat ass out. So, I was fat and gay, and locker rooms are where fat gay boys go to die. I know this as a fact because I saw like 4 fat gay boys die in front of my very eyes like 5 times. I quickly came to understand that gyms are evil. And there are a lot of reasons why, including the horrific murders that regularly take place in them.
Not to mention, my little brother got paralyzed at a gym when I was in high school. He was doing calf raises and hurt his back. His legs felt tingly when he got home, and we thought maybe he just pinched a nerve. The next day he woke up and couldn't move his legs. Gyms kill people and make them paralyzed.
Eventually, though, vanity won out as I realized that if I was ever going to amount to anything in the gay world, I needed to be thin and popular. I needed to have a body that was worthy of sexing, otherwise I should just go get addicted to Tina and die already. I needed the amazing body so that I didn't feel as inadequate as I would if I was fat (all gays feel inadequate, it's what keeps us living and striving to be better than straight people - which we are in many ways).
So, I set my fears aside and started going to the gym in college. It was amazing at first because I didn't have to use the locker rooms. I could change in my own dorm room, cry about my body and looks for a half an hour, and then go to the gym and avoid that public humiliation altogether. I'd get to the gym, work out hardcore for an hour, and then return home and eat my nightly bag of Movie Theatre Butter Lovers Popcorn. Then, every 2 weeks, I'd do it all again. In no time, I was feeling amazing. In three months, I had lost a whole pound. Things were going really well for me.
Eventually, I switched to just regular Butter Lovers and actually started working out more frequently. Addiction runs in my family, and I was quickly becoming addicted to the gym. I wanted to call my alcoholic mother and be like "put down the vodka, bitch, and get on a treadmill! It's amazing!" And then it happened. I was running on the treadmill one night, and I tripped over my own feet. Now, this happened to me on the regular as I am the world's clumsiest [state champion former gymnast]. I always recovered and did the quick look around to make sure no one had seen me, and if they had, I'd give them the smile like "Ha, damn treadmills! Can't live with 'em! Gyms paralyze people!"
This time was different. This was worse than some poor little boy getting paralyzed in some gym. That treadmill wanted to ruin me. I fell hard on the treadmill and it spit me out onto the gym floor. I tossed my walkman CD player and out popped Britney Spears' "Oops...! I Did It Again" CD. I wanted to die. Why couldn't I have picked the semi-heterosexual No Doubt CD? Why couldn't I have made a mix of Spice Girls songs and written something like "Hard Core Rock Mix" on the front as a decoy? Why did I have to be so gay?
A handsome, beefy, sexy ass motherfucker who turned out NOT to be my knight in shining armor picked up the CD, looked at me, handed it to me cautiously so as not to catch my homosexuality and walked away. Mortified, I left the gym immediately and never went back. I immediately wanted to call my little brother and tell him about my horrifying gym experience, but I didn't want him to have to carry the burden of knowing how awful it had been for me. He didn't deserve that.
That was enough to keep me out of a gym for years. Instead, I opted to run outdoors. I actually liked it a lot better because I didn't fall as often and there were lots of things to look at. Plus, there weren't fucking mirrors everywhere for me to get distracted by the sight of myself.
Even running free in the outdoors wasn't perfect. Like the time the elastic waistband in my shorts snapped and they fell down mid-run. Or the time I had just completed one of the longest runs ever (6 whole miles!) and I was drunk off confidence and tripped over a speed bump and rolled 15 feet. Or the time I got caught doing a mid air kick and punch to "The Edge of Glory" by a fellow runner who couldn't hide their laughter as they passed me. I am a mess wherever I go.
When I moved to New York, I learned that lots of gays went to gyms. I no longer had the fear of my bad super gay workout music to hold me back. What I had instead were a long line of other fears like: what if everyone is hotter than me (they are) or what if I fall on a treadmill in front of hot gay guys this time instead of straight ones (I would) or do I really want to work out somewhere and get cruised the entire time (no, I don't). One of my friends would regale me with stories of locker room sex and how he'd cruise guys and then go fuck them in his car. You read any NYC Craigslist Missed Connections and about half are from guys in gyms. It grosses me the fuck out mostly because I sweat like Tara Reid in church and I get Indian underwear (creeps up the trail) and my ass isn't just swamp ass, it's the fucking Everglades, and I want to feel hot, not judged after a good workout and gay men ruin everything.
At least that's how I used to feel. Because of my no-meat diet, I have been skinny for a while now. I don't really like being skinny. I want arms bigger than Naomi Campbell's, I want baby abs (I think real abs are gross) and it would be nice if my man boobs went on a permanent vacation. What's more is I have a super hot boyfriend now, so I don't really give a shit what the boys at the gym think of me because I know my boyfriend appreciates my Everglades ass. Speaking of, I want a more perfect ass. Because my ass is pretty nice, but it's not porn-star status. Yet.
Leave it to a Pisces to not want to be great just for themselves, but because it's incentive for someone else. I don't really care what the motivating factor is, to be honest, so long as I'm motivated. Besides feeling good and healthy and blah blah blah, other people will think I'm sexier and therefore I will feel even better about myself because if there's anything I've learned throughout this mess, it's that real, true, satisfying validation only comes from other people. Nothing can stop me now. Not even the fear of paralysis or bad workout music shame.
In truth, I have a fear of gyms that I don't like to talk about. Naturally, my public blog is where I feel most safe to discuss these fears in detail. But before we get there, let's cover a few of the important bases.
I do exercise. I love to run, and as an asthmatic, it is especially exciting for me because there literally was a day, sidelined during an indoor soccer game due to an asthma attack (nerd alert!), that I thought I'll never be able to run or do anything that required lung capacity beyond blowing out birthday candles. So, every time I run anything over a mile, I feel like I have not only completed a marathon, but lapped everyone in the process. Depending on the day, I even go home and do sit ups and push ups!! Someone give me a gold star!!
I was a gymnast when I was little. No, not a ballerina. A gymnast. Did I want to be a female gymnast? Sure, but what male gymnast didn't? The straight ones? Don't exist. No, he's gay too. Shut up. Because I know. I just do. Stop. No, you stop.
I went through fucking brutal workouts from the ages of seven through thirteen. Workouts that were two hours long 3-4 times a week with 30 minutes of conditioning. It was like Nazi Germany except not really at all. It was hardcore, and I had a ripped body to show for it. Now, there ain't nobody who was appreciating that right and tight body except the creepy pedophile neighbor up the street. I was like a mini-Arnold except without the Latina housekeeper mistress on the side. It was a shit ton of hard work for no good reason. I mean, I was state champion, but who really cares about that? No one is vain enough to appreciate hot little muscle bodies when you haven't hit puberty yet and if they are, I'm willing to bet they're Catholic priests.
After gymnastics, anything involving a gym became terrifying because I was a little gay boy. After gymnastics, I also got fat because I ate the same exact things I always was without the brutal, spirit-crushing workouts 3-4 times a week to burn my fat ass out. So, I was fat and gay, and locker rooms are where fat gay boys go to die. I know this as a fact because I saw like 4 fat gay boys die in front of my very eyes like 5 times. I quickly came to understand that gyms are evil. And there are a lot of reasons why, including the horrific murders that regularly take place in them.
Not to mention, my little brother got paralyzed at a gym when I was in high school. He was doing calf raises and hurt his back. His legs felt tingly when he got home, and we thought maybe he just pinched a nerve. The next day he woke up and couldn't move his legs. Gyms kill people and make them paralyzed.
Eventually, though, vanity won out as I realized that if I was ever going to amount to anything in the gay world, I needed to be thin and popular. I needed to have a body that was worthy of sexing, otherwise I should just go get addicted to Tina and die already. I needed the amazing body so that I didn't feel as inadequate as I would if I was fat (all gays feel inadequate, it's what keeps us living and striving to be better than straight people - which we are in many ways).
So, I set my fears aside and started going to the gym in college. It was amazing at first because I didn't have to use the locker rooms. I could change in my own dorm room, cry about my body and looks for a half an hour, and then go to the gym and avoid that public humiliation altogether. I'd get to the gym, work out hardcore for an hour, and then return home and eat my nightly bag of Movie Theatre Butter Lovers Popcorn. Then, every 2 weeks, I'd do it all again. In no time, I was feeling amazing. In three months, I had lost a whole pound. Things were going really well for me.
Eventually, I switched to just regular Butter Lovers and actually started working out more frequently. Addiction runs in my family, and I was quickly becoming addicted to the gym. I wanted to call my alcoholic mother and be like "put down the vodka, bitch, and get on a treadmill! It's amazing!" And then it happened. I was running on the treadmill one night, and I tripped over my own feet. Now, this happened to me on the regular as I am the world's clumsiest [state champion former gymnast]. I always recovered and did the quick look around to make sure no one had seen me, and if they had, I'd give them the smile like "Ha, damn treadmills! Can't live with 'em! Gyms paralyze people!"
This time was different. This was worse than some poor little boy getting paralyzed in some gym. That treadmill wanted to ruin me. I fell hard on the treadmill and it spit me out onto the gym floor. I tossed my walkman CD player and out popped Britney Spears' "Oops...! I Did It Again" CD. I wanted to die. Why couldn't I have picked the semi-heterosexual No Doubt CD? Why couldn't I have made a mix of Spice Girls songs and written something like "Hard Core Rock Mix" on the front as a decoy? Why did I have to be so gay?
A handsome, beefy, sexy ass motherfucker who turned out NOT to be my knight in shining armor picked up the CD, looked at me, handed it to me cautiously so as not to catch my homosexuality and walked away. Mortified, I left the gym immediately and never went back. I immediately wanted to call my little brother and tell him about my horrifying gym experience, but I didn't want him to have to carry the burden of knowing how awful it had been for me. He didn't deserve that.
That was enough to keep me out of a gym for years. Instead, I opted to run outdoors. I actually liked it a lot better because I didn't fall as often and there were lots of things to look at. Plus, there weren't fucking mirrors everywhere for me to get distracted by the sight of myself.
Even running free in the outdoors wasn't perfect. Like the time the elastic waistband in my shorts snapped and they fell down mid-run. Or the time I had just completed one of the longest runs ever (6 whole miles!) and I was drunk off confidence and tripped over a speed bump and rolled 15 feet. Or the time I got caught doing a mid air kick and punch to "The Edge of Glory" by a fellow runner who couldn't hide their laughter as they passed me. I am a mess wherever I go.
When I moved to New York, I learned that lots of gays went to gyms. I no longer had the fear of my bad super gay workout music to hold me back. What I had instead were a long line of other fears like: what if everyone is hotter than me (they are) or what if I fall on a treadmill in front of hot gay guys this time instead of straight ones (I would) or do I really want to work out somewhere and get cruised the entire time (no, I don't). One of my friends would regale me with stories of locker room sex and how he'd cruise guys and then go fuck them in his car. You read any NYC Craigslist Missed Connections and about half are from guys in gyms. It grosses me the fuck out mostly because I sweat like Tara Reid in church and I get Indian underwear (creeps up the trail) and my ass isn't just swamp ass, it's the fucking Everglades, and I want to feel hot, not judged after a good workout and gay men ruin everything.
At least that's how I used to feel. Because of my no-meat diet, I have been skinny for a while now. I don't really like being skinny. I want arms bigger than Naomi Campbell's, I want baby abs (I think real abs are gross) and it would be nice if my man boobs went on a permanent vacation. What's more is I have a super hot boyfriend now, so I don't really give a shit what the boys at the gym think of me because I know my boyfriend appreciates my Everglades ass. Speaking of, I want a more perfect ass. Because my ass is pretty nice, but it's not porn-star status. Yet.
Leave it to a Pisces to not want to be great just for themselves, but because it's incentive for someone else. I don't really care what the motivating factor is, to be honest, so long as I'm motivated. Besides feeling good and healthy and blah blah blah, other people will think I'm sexier and therefore I will feel even better about myself because if there's anything I've learned throughout this mess, it's that real, true, satisfying validation only comes from other people. Nothing can stop me now. Not even the fear of paralysis or bad workout music shame.
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