Shuffling "The List"

This summer will be eight years since I joined my "local" gym. (Yeah, it's almost a 20-minute walk from home but it was close to my office at the time I joined. And it was and still is cheap.)

I've never looked at it as a place to find a BF or a hook-up, but I must confess I'm a bit disappointed in the almost complete lack of social interaction I've experienced there. There's been only about 4 guys I ever talked to on a regular basis, and a few I tried talking to but they weren't very receptive. So generally it's a look but don't talk situation. I guess for the gym that it is (and the steady degaying it's undergone), that's no surprise.

I mean, it's not Results ("new boyfriend in the first 30 days or your money back!").

Aside from my music and the occasional TV program to distract me a bit while I pound the treadmill pavement, I've amused myself by composing a mental list of Top 5 guys there that I'd do in the proverbial NYM (New York minute). Mind you, this is also more of a fantasy list, as these are generally guys I figure I'd have no chance with if I ever even got to talking to them in the first place.

Through these few years, my list hasn't really changed much. There have been a few other simply stunning men I've seen there but quite unfortunately, they seem to be one-timers (on a business trip, I'm guessing).

Most of the list revision is not due to new hotties, but to listers who seem to have disappeared from that particular gym. If I haven't seen a lister in the last few months, he gets tentatively stricken from the list. And honestly, I've stricken so many and added so few over the last year that my Top 5 list now has about 3 guys on it. I can't even remember now who the other more recent listers were!

Note that I mentioned that it's a list of "ungettables"; I have another much less-structured list, that being "looks like he'd make a good boyfriend." I actually got somewhere, sort of, with one of them about a year ago. After sizing him up for years but never talking to him (my trainer in the beginning told me this guy was partnered and they owned a house together), he nevertheless seemed to be smiling at me and made a lot of eye contact, and then he finally claimed a stairmaster one non-busy day right next to mine and I finally said hello. We got to talking a fair amount over the next several meetings, and he wasn't only cute, fairly close to my age, and totally my type physically, but he was very nice, kind of low-key, and smart -- a doctor (psychiatrist), no less! Totally take homeable to Mom... so finally after a bunch of really nice conversations, I asked him if he wanted to hang out after a workout sometime, to which he pretty much offered up the inevitable "sorry, I have a boyfriend." I tried to call the horse back into the stable by assuring him that I still would enjoy having a drink, but he seemed completely disinterested at that point. So now I don't even go very often when I know he likes to go there. It's just too much of a bummer. I see him there once in a great while, and we are still friendly, but I don't try making much conversation anymore.

Anyway, back to the point: the fading Top 5 list. Well, I shook it up a bit this week. In fact, my new star debuted at #1!

I first noticed him there many months ago, and took an interest right away, but I didn't see him all that often. Now having seen him twice in the past few days up-close, I'm totally convinced. He's about exactly my height, dark hair, hairy chest with the fur starting to come up onto his shoulders, a medium build (well, he's actually kind of slighter than I like, but OK) with some absolutely perfect definition all over -- not big but definitely muscular. And an absolutely handsome, no-particular-ethnic-group face framed by the most gorgeous dark curly hair and most recently, these perfect dense-yet-short sideburns and the shadow of the start of a goatee.

Up-close #1 was last week when he was stretching on a mat and I, still working off my calf injury from March, decided I ought to be stretching at the end of my workouts, and managed to sidle up setting my mat down right next to his. Unfortunately, no eye contact, no anything, even though I looked in his direction numerous times. Up-close #2 was today when I got on the elliptical machine with just one other empty one between us. Again, no acknowledgement even though I did try to at least get him to return my lingering glances (without seeming as if I was staring at him--I'm very careful about that!).


I'm not really sure what to make of this guy. I've never seen him at the gym with anybody, or even talking to anyone else there. Plus he doesn't ever seem to smile. He's not frowning or scowling, he just seems like he's there to just do his own thing without the need to acknowledge anyone else. This could all mean he's either rather shy, like me, or he's a narcissistic asshole. Or somewhere in between. I've never seen him anywhere else, certainly not "out"--he may not even be gay! (but he's sooo pretty & hunky, if he isn't gay he def. should be!) But regardless, at this point I can't imagine a situation where I'd actually get to talking to him. So I'll just use him as my inspiration-of-the-moment to make sure I'm there every day around 5 (well, that and the rapid approach of swimsuit season) to ogle him from afar or even close-up. While I imagine how truly beautiful-looking he'd be if he actually smiled.