making friends at the gym.

"How long did you run, an hour?"

me (confused by unwonted gym-attention. being genial): "no, but it sure felt like it! only about forty minutes" (this is a stupid thing to say. I suppose, 40 minutes being two-thirds of 60, it kind of works, but usually the 'it sure felt like it' thing begins working only at 2x or greater differences between perceived and real)

"Well, you looked strong!"

"::polite chuckle:: well, hopefully four miles more fit than when I got here!" (also a stupid thing to say)

::end of conversation::

Now, pop quiz, hot shot:

Was my interlocutor in the above dialogue: 

A) Young, cute dedicated gym-going girl, appraising me with a sort of 'hey, you're kind of cute and you work out and I bet you tell funny jokes and are musical and read a lot' look and striking up some post-treadmill conversation around the ol' water cooler. OR

B) Paunchy, brown-toothed middle aged guy in white hanes t-shirt that is, at this point, more transparent than is comfortable to look at, accosting me from his car while I walk to mine in the parking lot.

If you guessed A, you, like me, are apparently waiting to wake up one morning in the middle of a romantic comedy. If you guessed B, you have been paying attention.

I have long maintained, with characteristically glib self-deprecation, that the demographics with whom I am most popular are small children and middle-aged women. Let me right now say that I am horrified, and completely disavow and repudiate this alarming gender-leap in my market appeal. This is awful. 

The worst part about this is that I think it was actually borne out of some sort of 'hail fellow, well met' comradely feeling, wherein this guy had identified me as someone like him, a flabby looking misfit at the gym silently (as possible) waiting for physical fitness to descend from the rafters and bless him, on that one last crunch, with a radically transmuted physique. As if to say: "You're just like me! We sure do work hard, but it never seems to help! heh heh heh! Do you get the chafing too? heheh." 

Actually the worst part is probably that I kind of wanted to high-five this complete stranger for the weird, possibly creepy, pep-talk.

With that being said, I've decided to at least seriously consider contemplating a new fitness-achieving technique: tanning. This is the thing about tan people: tan people, regardless of what size/shape they are, almost always look like they are that size/shape on purpose. Something about conscientiously roasting yourself to a carefully cultivated bronze suggests that it may be cellulite, but its there on purpose, and is actually the secret to your charm and attraction. This is appealing to me, because its much easier. I can picture myself strolling along the beach, blebobbling as I go. When confronted (hopefully not by creepy Hanes Guy again) with the tacitly judging looks of other beach patrons, I will be able to explain:

"Yeah. mhmmm. Take a look. Thats what I call the "Higher Education Flab-Fanny Pack." (HEFFP, for short. Also the respiratory sound required to move it from place to place). Nice huh? Really a rich creamy mocha. Took me six years, maybe in the hundreds of jars of peanut butter. Wanna make out? (Again, assuming not-Hanes Guy)"

In closing, I'd like to point out that this post-run tete-a-tete completely and terrifyingly confirms my initial claustrophobic, voyeured-upon fears of the gym. I told you.