The Prowl: Downward Dogs
I have recently embraced a new fitness regimen. This is partly because I lead an almost entirely inactive lifestyle which I am certain is not healthy. If I keep lobbying while wining and dining without increasing my level of physical activity, the odds of falling into a diabetic coma are extraordinarily high. Good metabolism cannot last forever, after all.
This is also part of an effort to help boost the morale of the female friend I described last week who could definitely use some extra endorphins at the moment.
One way to get over a break-up, and in her case, overcome feelings of being dumped for economic theory, is to reacquaint yourself with dear friends Ben and Jerry. However, I have always found that they are fake friends and their comforts fleeting. Eating your problems will in fact further exacerbate them. It is very difficult to move on from a relationship if you are twenty pounds heavier.
More than this though, there is something hugely satisfying about seeing that special someone who left (say over Thanksgiving like she will) and knowing that you look better than before. Maybe this is petty, but satisfying nonetheless. So, to help my friend out of her slump, and to live like a reasonable person who is no longer in school, we have both joined a gym and are attempting to peer pressure each other into getting back into shape.
When we made this commitment, it did not occur to me that the gym might serve a dual purpose as a place to meet that special someone. More realistically, it is a place to be hit on, a lot. That happens in movies, but movies are not real and actual gym-going people focus on gym-going more so than ladies. In real life people go, and exercise, and listen to music, and effectively exist in their own universe which does not involve other people. At least, certainly it does not involve other people trying to force their way uninvited into that universe disrupting the zen-like calm which fitness is supposed to induce. I think part of why this might also be the case is that there is something profoundly off-putting about the guy very awkwardly downward dogging next to me in yoga class staring and commenting on my ass.
The gentleman in question began his pursuit by asking how I became so flexible. It has been my experience that almost any time flexibility is brought into a conversation, this is pure sexual innuendo, especially if it is along the lines of "you must have been quite the acrobat," after telling him I had been a gymnast in a previous life. But these kind of gym come-ons are easy to ignore simply by retreating into the locker room, or, if you're me, switching from early evening to lunch-time yoga. It's recess. I honesty have nothing better to do, and neither does my friend, in the middle of the day.
A few days after we made our grand switch to attend classes with more housewives and fewer pervs, my still heartbroken friend found a Craigslist Missed Connection ad, clearly about me. For the record, I am not entirely clear as to why she was reading Missed Connections. She claims there is something hopelessly romantic about the whole concept - leaving a message for someone you saw in a brief moment so that they might see it and you can both fall madly in love. I am not convinced. But, she is in a fragile state and I am not about to crush her not-so-hidden dream that someone will one day be so secretly smitten with her that they post about it on the internet. Nevertheless, my creepy yoga buddy decided that my refusal to see him in non-gym-going hours warranted such a missive. Referencing the gym we go to, the time of the class, and the last time we spoke, he said "Yoga girl, please come back to class."
Trying to distract me during yoga class is one thing, although not overly appreciated. Being creepy and kind of pathetic is quite another. My advice for him, which should I ever run into him again I am inclined to make explicit: Take no for an answer, accept that I am seeing someone, but would not be interested regardless, and no, my friend is not interested either, and carry on with your workout. Also, you smell like a goat (I wouldn't actually say that, since it's just mean). More than this perhaps, I am somewhat concerned for the state of adult social interactions if sheer desperation can render a grown man to beg for companionship on the internet like a sniveling child rather than just growing a pair and accepting defeat. There will be other girls, but perhaps not at the gym or in a virtual world ...
At least on the bright side, the amusement that this has caused my friend has at least almost temporarily distracted her from her studious ex-boyfriend across the ocean. Anything I can do to help, I suppose.
