Catwoman in the Gym Room
I don’t know what the protocol is or should be when a hot chick stays in the field of vision for an extended time and you’re among acquaintances without the level of familiarity needed to defuse the awkwardness. Even a lot of friends I wouldn’t feel comfortable with in the domineering presence of bulging yoga pants. I’m not saying there needs to be a lewd comment, but you can only go so long pretending not to to notice before your conversation loses authenticity and focus.
It’s weird not to acknowledge something fairly innocuous on all parties’ minds, but it can be even weirder to try to say something. I remember a decade ago I was at an empty bar with a client after an onsite, and two flashily dressed females entered in showstopping fashion. There was a pause and my companion, a middle-aged bachelor, quipped “I should have brought my glasses.” I responded with a light chuckle and mumbled agreement, and that was the end of it. But I felt like a tool. We could have let that one slide.
Here’s a more ambiguous scenario. Our HOA-funded neighborhood gym is cozy, a step up from sparse hotel gyms but with very little open space. Three people using free weights and two more on the machines is probably the maximum functional capacity.
Between the mirrored wall and lines of sight from each equipment station, it’s not possible for any attendee to go unnoticed. You know exactly who is with you at all times.
Normally I get there early in the morning and see the same crew. Two straight days this month I slept in, and a young (certainly of age) woman with almost overwhelming sexuality was there doing strenuous workouts in pants borrowed from Catwoman. She was beautiful, Black, tatted artistically and had a fundamentally perfect posterior carved by athleticism at a 90-degree angle when viewed from the side (projected, not observed).
My old farmer-boy roommate would sum up her situation with a hyperbolic understatement: “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers.” In this case even Cheetos with no napkins would be acceptable.
Now, if you were working out with me in that cramped gym and say, a coworker or neighbor, we would have had to play the charade of the elephant (trunk) in the room and flail at disparate conversation topics while conspicuously keeping our eyes away from what was exerting gravitational pull in a desperate attempt to show each other we either didn’t notice or care. How would you suggest we handle it? I suppose leaving things unspoken is often the polite if disingenuous thing to do.
Fortunately I was alone and didn’t have to talk to anyone. I told my wife later, and I’m telling you now. My wife was impressed when I said, truthfully, I was afraid to look in Catwoman’s direction, to the point where it might have been apparent to anyone paying attention I was overcompensating by rotating my back toward her continuously as if boxing out for a long-distance rebound. This was partly because I was intimidated by her aura, and also because I assumed she has guys leering at her all the time when she just wants to exercise.
My wife said most guys wouldn’t be so modest. I don’t know. Civility is a part of it. I’m also not a multi-tasker and trying to exercise myself in minimal-rest circuits for simultaneous cardio and resistance training. I hate being interrupted and certainly don’t look for distractions.
And again, there is some element of timidity. When Catwoman asked if I was still using the Smith machine, I replied with an energetic “Nope, all you!” That was true, and it also would have been my answer had I been in the middle of a rep in the middle of a set.
We are wired to pursue mates, yet to fear rejection at the same time. At a bar the other day, I confided in my buddy a pitiful story from ninth or 10th grade at Jasper High School. I was walking home across a field and spotted a group of cheerleaders coming my way on the same path. Mortified of any kind of interaction with them, I took a hard left across the field with nowhere to go but down a little creek. I didn’t want to stop and make it seem like I wasn’t going there all along. All I could do was hike down the bank and try to cross.
My foot sank deep into muddy water, so there I was standing in a ditch in Texas heat, my unfashionably tight jeans picked by my mother soaked past the ankle. (Note: Not sure why I didn’t just take a right. Maybe I’m misremembering left or right. I probably went the direction of home because even back then efficiency trumped insecurity.)
The worst part is when I showed vulnerability and told my buddy this present day, the first thing he said was hold on, this is a serious question, I’m not trying to be funny, but was this during high school or did this happen recently? I burst out laughing and collapsed onto the nasty floor by the pool table. Given he truly was serious and a friend of 25 years, this was overall the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me.
Age tempers hormones, but underlying dynamics remain. In my early 20s at a corporate office there was an attractive executive recognized by all. I was chattering in the elevator with my young male sportswriter peers when she walked in, and like a sitcom it was complete silence and half-held breaths four floors down. We might as well have been pubescent teenagers with balls actively dropping along with the elevator.
Now in my fifth decade, I could play it cool in the elevator. The uncool part would be if you were there with me, and depending on our terms of engagement we would have to decide on sophomoric joke, tasteful acknowledgement, not tasteful acknowledgement, or fake ignorance. Even when happily married with two kids and no untoward motives, awkwardness is part of the timeless truth about Catwomen and dogs.