Summer Romance: Struggling With Pull-Ups and Men

img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101625" title="woman at gym" src="/files/wxrimport/2011-08/woman-at-gym.jpg" alt="" width="440" height="280" /><

Body Image is a funny thing.  Big girls, small girls, skinny girls, tall girls – just about every type of girl has a skewed body image.  Despite what many critics say, the media is not exclusively to blame for modern society’s self image issues.

Warped conceptions of what a “good body” entails stem from both airbrushed actresses to simple human nature; it’s safe to assume that everyone experiences a healthy level of self-doubt. But for someone crushing on their gorgeous personal trainer, thoughts of body image become rather consuming, along with higher levels of self-doubt.

This morning, while going through an aggressive abs circuit with my personal trainer, Mr. C, a woman next to me was effortlessly doing ten, then fifteen, then twenty pull-ups.  I can do five.  She was svelt, pretty, and jacked (but not in a manly way.  Just impressively toned).  As I struggled through another suspended leg lift, I found myself thinking, “That’s the kind of girl C would go for.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I work out every day, was blessed with height, and think I’m in above-average shape, but not like this lady.  This lady could be on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

I saw C sneak a peek at her and my self-doubt escalated to dangerous heights.  Mercifully, he looked back at me and announced, “I don’t like that lady. She’s so rude.”  Oh, thank god.  Unfortunately, the declarations of profound dislike – though much appreciated – did little to convince me that C is interested in women who aren’t impeccably toned.

Not only has my new, heightened level of insecurity proven to be destructively self-deprecating, it is distracting me from paying attention to how C is actually acting.  Prior to the abs circuit, while warming up, he played my favorite songs on his iPod (a few days ago I mentioned that I love country star Jake Owen).  We were joking around, laughing wildly as I did bear crawls from one side of the room to the other, and singing along to the music – together! – under our breath.  As one country song about summer love faded into the next, the romantic tension was palpable.  And yet, despite the over-the-top flirting, I’m keeping myself from thinking anything except (a) he’s probably just being flirty because it’s a good sales tactic, and (b) he only goes for body-building goddesses.

For the first time in my life, I might actually find myself envying the egotistical maniac who would have no qualms asking C out on date, six pack abs or not.