Jonny Numb

During my school days, I considered “gym class” a bizarre concept.

But perhaps this had everything to do with my poor coordination and pubescent weight gain that combined to make me a popular target for the much more coordinated and physically fit jocks to exercise (ha, ha) their torture tactics upon during competitive activities.

I actually have very good reflexes – I can’t count how many times I’ve juggled a glass in freefall only to get a solid grip and prevent it from shattering on the floor. (But good reflexes are their own form of stress…maybe I’ll talk about that some other time.)

In any case: in preparation for our October tour of England, Scotland, and Wales, me and my S.O. – after years of deliberation – finally decided to join a local gym to get ourselves “in shape” for the impending trip.

We’ve been going (either together or solo) at least twice a week for about the past 3 weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the gym is a strange place.

It’s a useful place, for sure, and I’m ultimately glad we stopped procrastinating and decided to commit to an exercise routine where the results are evident in the second-day aches and soreness that manifests like paralyzing viper venom in our veins.

I’ve been using the wall-sized mirrors mostly to ascertain how I look when I’m using the various weight machines. But during one of our first trips, I briefly noticed a guy flexing and grinning into the mirror (I dunno…maybe the grin was really some sort of blood-vessel-popping strain?).

Meanwhile, I’m usually mortified when tasked with observing myself in any capacity.

Though I probably look a little odd myself: the “misfit” who picked up a couple pair of passable shorts, but wears worn-out black band tees bearing strange names and logos. What could said names and logos possibly mean?! Are they Satanic? Possibly. (But doubtful.)

I feel particularly like an alien who crash-landed in a back-alley dumpster when I approach the weight machines, reading over the step-by-step instructions (or, in some cases, the handy, Ikea-styled illustrations for proper usage).

“What is this thing? Master computer, please analyze… [beep-boop-beep-boop]”

When I was young and few thoughts existed outside of the immediate self and its needs, I put a disproportionate – and very wasteful in hindsight – emphasis on how I thought I looked to the rest of the world. This perpetual source of dissatisfaction and humiliation, however, was bending to a helpless and needy mentality when I should’ve been taking active steps to change the parts of my appearance I disliked.

Of course, aging has its own effects on one’s perception: those who actively seek validation are cursed to a mental state of placing the needs and expectations of others above their own. I jumped that hurdle and let my self-consciousness off the leash to gallop into the sunset sometime in my 30s.

I have a big, weird head and probably look plenty out of shape, but I don’t dwell on any incidental looks aimed in my direction, and that is rather freeing.

But I guess the big thing about the gym – the ultimate strangeness of it – is how it is, on the surface, something of a community. That said, it’s a community of isolation, where everyone is off in their own world, honed in on whatever goals have brought them to the mecca of weight machines, treadmills, and stationary bikes (among other mystifying contraptions I would never touch out of fear of pulling heretofore unknown muscles).

In the times I’ve gone, the number of solo exercisers outnumbers those who show up with a partner (whether platonic or romantic). That level of self-motivation is admirable, even if the overt sighing and gasping and straining sometimes seems a bit too showboating to my alien radar to take seriously.

Until next time, Earthlings!