When I close my eyes, I can see his smug face. That shit
eating grin. It is almost impossible to clear it from my mind. For the purposes
of this post, we will call this foolish asshole ‘Chris’ (because that’s totally
his name and I am NOT going to pay him the respect of anonymity.. this probably
isn’t at all cool of me to be doing).
What has this clown done to make me curse his name? Probably
nothing
I hate this man, and I don’t even know him. Part of being
overweight is that every interaction we have, and don’t have, is shrouded in
the insecurity of perceived judgement. I know I am not alone in this. Whether it’s
at the grocery store, visiting your kids school, or anywhere that is made up of
meeting new people, every time an overweight person meets a new person, the
interaction is polluted with the insecurity and fear of judgement.
I was first able to quantify this when I was a young man. I could be at the grocery store and
reach for an apple at the same time as a beautiful woman. Our hands would bump,
just for a second, just enough to feel the chilliness of her fingertips as we
both picked up the produce. Our heads would turn and our eyes would lock like a
living flesh version of lady and the tramp. At that moment, with both of us
holding the same piece of fruit, our entire lives would flash through my mind:
I
could see the entire trajectory of our relationship. Her apprehension with my appearance
slowly fading away as she gets to know the real me. Her eventual and inevitable
ascension into an almost unhealthy obsession with my incredible mind. We would
buy a house with a white picket fence, and have 3 kids (Edward Jr, Samantha who
we will call Sam, and Linus)… but one day I will come home to find her in bed
with an absolutely beautiful Puerto Rican man, ironically named Eduardo, who
while she is not emotionally involved with, she does sleep with him daily as a
replacement for the physical desire that is missing form her life. Fuck this.
Is this how I want to live? I cannot believe how betrayed I feel. The
incredible level of marginalization and rejection she made me feel. I can’t believe I drove her
to this by not taking care of myself. But I can’t blame me…
Fast forward to the end of my wildly upsetting fabricated reality.
I come back to reality to find myself slamming the apple on the floor and
screaming “NO ONE GETS THE APPLE, YOU CHEATING WHORE”. *side note… its not lost
on me that I boiled her worth down to her physical appearance while standing in
judgement of her perceived judgement of my physical appearance. Insecurity and
anxiety are not born in logic, or fairness. If I was putting the proper thought
into any of this, with a healthy brain, I doubt the interaction would even be
an interaction and instead would just have been a thing that happened and I
never thought of again.
These wildly unfair and completely fictionalized
relationship arcs aren’t exclusive to attractive members of the opposite sex.
This is where that piece of shit Chris comes in.
Chris has been a member of the same gym as me for 3 years. It’s
more of a health club than a gym, and it is my favorite place. Chris appears to
love it as much as I do and also appears to be on the same workout schedule as
me. I have seen his dumb fucking face 4-5 days a week for 3 years. In the beginning
we were both overweight dudes just trying to get healthier. But slowly he
evolved into a macho bastard that is out to get me. If I set a PR in a workout,
he inevitably will doing a similar workout, and he will be doing it just a
little better than me. If I lose 1 lb, Chris loses 2. He follows me around the
gym one upping me at every turn. He is so nonchalant about it to. He chats
people up… he laughs with his friends… it’s almost as if he doesn’t even know
hes ruining my life. But trust me, that son of a bitch knows. Over the past 3
years he has become absolutely shredded. He has like 10% body fat now, and
looks amazing. He basically has set out on a mission to break my will by doing
everything I am trying to do, but do it just a little better. I hate him so
much that I am getting pissed just writing this. Worst of all, he does it all
while acting as if he doesn’t even know me or that he is ruining my life.
This summer at the pool, same fucking story. I would be
sitting out in the sun drinking my gin and tonic… I mean water… and surfing
through the internet on my phone trying to decide which charitable organization
I should be philanthropicizing the shit out of, all while making my tummy a delicious
cocoa tan. And sure enough, this no account penis monger comes strolling out
and gets in the pool and starts walking
around in the water. He appears to be stretching out, but ohhhh what a show he
puts on. Strutting back and forth like a cocky peacock. We get it… you worked
out soooo hard and need to stretch out your rippling muscles. GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Thanks for ruining my pool time too.
It all reached a head this week. My trainer has been working
me pretty hard. He has me doing workouts I enjoy and that keep me motivated.
The best part is, because I enjoy the workouts he has me on, I find that I can’t
wait to push myself on days that I am not with dreamboat Bryan. I want every
workout to be harder, so that every day I feel a little better than I was
before. Each workout is filled with me pushing myself harder and harder. Then
on Thursday, 3/15/2018, at 11:35 am pacific standard time, it happened. I was mid-way
through a set of bench press, and it approached me. That steaming pile of horse
crap walked up behind the bench and spotted me. I finished my set and slowly
sat up… it felt like it took me an hour to get on my feet and turn around. Like
a scene from a Michael Bay movie… Chris’s shirt was slowly blowing in the wind,
doves flew out from behind me. It spoke. “Dude, bro (he didn’t actually say
dude or bro, but he feels like the type of dumb shit that would say dude and
bro a lot, so I added them in because he must just be too dumb to have remembered.
Besides, I am telling the story so fuck you, he said whatever I wanted him to
say)… Dude, bro, I see you in here a lot. I love it. You are strong too. We
probably should have started chatting earlier. It would be fun to be able to
hold each other accountable and maybe have someone to spot each other now and
then. Besides, I am friends with Bryan (my trainer) and I like having other
cool guys to talk to when we come in.”
CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THE BALLS ON THIS GUY!!!!!! Its not
bad enough that he has been slowly breaking me down over the past 3 years. Now
he has put me in a place where I obviously
have to fire the trainer I like. So I harkened my inner John Bender, from
Breakfast club and I said:
Don’t
you ever talk about my friends. You don’t know any of my friends. You don’t look
at any of my friends. And you certainly wouldn’t condescend to speak to any of
my friends. So you just stick to the things you know: Shopping, too small t
shirts, and your fucking BMW. And as far as being concerned about whats gonna happen
when you and I walk down the hallways of the gym together, you can forget it ‘cuz
it’s never gonna’ happen. Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your
fuckin’ prom.
Now, while proof reading this, I am sure it appears I just
told you a story of two dudes who live completely separate lives which ended in
me screaming at some poor dude who was trying to help me. But that’s… that isn’t…
that’s not what happened. I haven’t been terrified to go to the gym in fear of
judgement that wasn’t happening. I haven’t lived my whole life under a shroud
of judgement that was actually born in my own illogical insecurity. I am not a narcissist
who thinks people are hyper aware of my every perceived fault. I am a victim here
people. I am the victim of a very well orchestrated attack on my ability to
better myself. People obviously judge me at every turn, and want me to fail.
Otherwise, if this wasn’t true, I have wasted so many hours of my life in
competition with people who didn’t know they were part of a competition. I haven’t
hypocritically been judging people on their appearance or out of jealousy of
their accomplishments as a way to deflect the embracement of a perceived judgement
I have unfairly projected onto them. That would be dumb
Remember:
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