G-Y-M ought to be categorized with other unmentionable three letter words. Not only because the humans who exit are barely recognizable, but due to the voluntary torture that is undergone therein.
Faces that are usually contoured drip sweat like candle wax. Hair normally tamed with a blow dryer and brush is pulled back into a messy bun. Neon Nike shorts speed walk past. Men break out the muscle tees and loudly talk about how much they've been lifting recently.
After keying in your locker code, you pivot slowly and face rows of machines. A part of you dreads what’s coming- cardio, lots of cardio.
Glancing at the door you consider a hasty exit, but you aren’t ready to retract all those well-intentioned resolutions. A new semester, a healthier semester, you’d said. Then again, Alice once said in Wonderland, “I give myself very good advice, but I rarely ever follow it.”
With a sigh you slip on your headphones, committing to the impending exercise. Surveying your options, you pray for an empty machine armed with a wish list like a house hunter on HGTV. Preferably a treadmill against the back wall; ideally facing a window without anyone on either side.
Drat, no such luck.
From the front row a treadmill smirks at you and inclines its head. Trudging up to the machine, you try to ignore the blonde ponytail on your right. Gigi Hadid ‘s look-alike in leggings, glowing rather than sweating and somehow peacefully smiling while in a dead sprint. Meanwhile, you are concerned that you've already lost your water weight during the warm-up!
Many compare the monotony of trekking miles on a stationary machine to a hamster on a wheel. However, many forget that university gyms especially make one feel like a fish in a glass bowl. Everyone seems to be watching you breathe and there’s nothing to hide behind. So, you just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
Guys at the gym seem puffed up with pride or steroids (probably both.) They peacock around, flexing till their veins seem ready to pop! After lifting for all of two seconds, they strut across the front of the gym to get a drink of water. Mhm hmm, they are thirsty, in more ways than one.
Yet, you are not looking for Prince Charming to shoot you a smile whilst bench pressing, or look you up and down on his way to the watering hole (I mean drinking fountain...they aren’t animals, right?) Clearly, they misunderstand your intentions for your workout experience.
Allow me to lay it out, plain and simple. I go to the gym to pump some endorphins into my system and make sure that my clothes still fit because life is stressful. That being said, my weekly pilgrimages to the gym prepare my body and soul for social events. At said social events, I may cross paths with eligible gentlemen. (Notice, I did not say that I hoped to find Mr. Wonderful at the gym.)
As it turns out, the gym is a meat market. There’s some basic chicken, brawny beef, teeny-tiny ribs and some juicy steak. However, I will not partake. Consider this my formal proclamation, I am a gym vegetarian. Let me eat my fresh greens in peace for my own health and sanity.
