I go to the gym to work out.
Radical concept, I know, but I remember how many people at the gym at the U of Minnesota apparently thought the weight machines and stationary bikes and stair steppers and treadmills were merely obstacles in their wanderings around the floor, saying ‘hi’ to friends, and checking themselves out in the mirrors.
There are people like that at the gym I go to now—you can find them most easily on the weekends—but as this gym is a pretty spartan and non-hip place, most of the folks are there for the same reason I am.
We’re all shapes and [adult] ages, and I’ve seen people with canes and wheelchairs maneuver themselves into the weight machines, so, again, this gym is serving its purpose as a place for people to get into or maintain shape.
All of this is a very long way of saying, Hey, I’m there to work out! Got it? Work. Out. That’s it.
Still. One of the benefits of hitting the gym is there are others there who are clearly much more dedicated to working out than oneself, and which results are apparent in these personages.
Great fucking shoulders, in other words. I have a weakness for, and thus pay attention to, well-sculpted shoulders. Yes, I have a general aesthetic appreciation for an athletic body, an appreciation tinged with the sadness that I am unlikely ever to manipulate my body into any category beyond the merely ‘fit’, but there is something about shoulders which gets me.
Yes, I am objectifying my fellow-gym-goers, gazing for perhaps a second or two too long at the gents doing pull-ups and otherwise taking note of the muscle-shirted men with the taut lines running up the forearms and over the biceps and rippling across broad backs. These men aren’t Mr. Universe, with muscle tumoring out of muscle, but regular guys with, jesus, beautiful, beautiful shoulders.
It’s so wrong. I’m there to work out, not to check out other people who are working out.
I mean, the treadmill should be enough to get my heart racing, shouldn’t it?
AbsurdBeats 