How my gym locker room taught me about the crap women must endure from men

As I've often noted on this blog - I'm a disgusting fatass.  However, I do workout almost every day in hopes that something magic will happened and my body will only pay attention to my lethargic workouts and not the three sandwiches from Jimmy John's I eat after them.   I am that stereotypical guy who works out and never sees any positive changes.  Always in the gym - always fat. 

The Jimmy John's anecdote is true, by the way.  On Tuesday of this week I had a Hunter's Club, BLT and a slim ham and cheese (treated the ham and cheese with Hellman's mayo packets I have stashed in my desk pantry - always steal them if you can).  When my wife asked why lunch was so expensive I told her I bought two interns lunch.  That was a stupid move on my part. We don't have interns where I work and I had to invent two college students out of thin air when my wife asked me details about the lunch.  Now I'm having to invent an entire summer's worth of stories about two nonexistent interns so that I don't get caught lying about a $15 lunch.  FML.

Anywho...

When I work out at lunch I have to use the gym's locker room.  Pretty normal deal in most places, but not in DC.  It's no secret that DC is the gayest place on earth.  Per capita there are more homosexual men in DC than anywhere else in the United States.  There's not a thing wrong with that and I'm actually proud to live in such a diverse community. HOWEVER, it also means you have to deal with the fact that you might be pursued by a man, and that's something that is very foreign to a Texas boy like me. 

I'm very modest in the locker room.  I've got nothing to be proud of and thus nothing to show off.  I stop just short of wrapping a towel around my clothed body and taking my pants off and putting on my shorts under the cover so that nobody laughs, or gets sick.  I wear my wedding ring and make sure I do whatever it takes to show everyone that I'm not trolling for steam room shenanigans - shenanigans we all know happen in DC gym locker rooms (God I hope women do the same things in their locker room... in my mind they do). 

I'm not interested and that doesn't matter because men are pigs.

These guys don't care that I'm married (some say it's actually a turn on) or that I'm not fit, they still sit there and stare waiting for me get undressed.  They follow me around pretending to brush their hair in the mirror next to me or enter the shower next to mine after they've clearly already showered.  They'll chat me up while I'm trying to get dressed and they're wearing nothing but flip flops - naked and free as a toddler in an Arkansas Wal-Mart.  In the weight room the constant - incessant staring and coincidental meetings at every single machine or water fountain continue along with empty chat about my workout and what schedule I'm on.  The whole thing just creeps me out and makes me generally uncomfortable.  So much so, I now make an effort to go to the gym at 11:00 a.m. so that I beat the crowd.   It's terrible. 

So the other day when I was staring a hole through some poor coed on the metro I realized that I'm the same kind of asshole as the guys in my gym locker room.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had done every single little annoying thing those men in the gym had done, but I had done them to women - pretty much since I figured out that getting cooties was a small price to pay to touch some boobies. 

It was pretty disturbing to realize I had made women feel like that before.  It's just so creepy how we stare and hover and pant like dogs every time a woman crosses her legs, bends over or faces a gust of wind in a dress.  We stand too close, make stupid idle conversation and go out of our way to force interactions.  Our advances are so sexually driven that any claim to the contrary is just plain laughable.  We are terrible!

What's worse is that I only get exposed to this at the gym from time to time.  Women get this treatment all day every day wherever they go.  Now I know why they are in a shitty mood most of the time - they tired of our BS stalking behavior. 

It's a real eye-opener when it happens to you.  You really get a sense of what you put people through.  With that said - I'm not going to stop.  There's a real chance that that girl's blouse may pop open during hard stop on the metro and I'll be damned if I'm going to miss it.  Married guys don't get much in the way of excitement - we gotta seek it out and make sure we don't miss it.

Please send your hate mail to bradkanus@gmail.com.  

Comments

[L David]

I guess when women start taking the initiative (and risk) to start asking men out and making advances on men, they can start complaining about our advances being sexually charged.

Please do a follow-up post with the hate mail you receive. Keep up the good work.

[17thStreet]

Your insight was about how women are put upon by straight men, but just think what gay men have to put up with from other gay men. Just cause you're both gay doesn't make the creepy stares and stupid idle conversation automatically welcome, especially when they get in the way of the creepy stares and idle conversation you are directing at someone else. Men are pigs, indeed, and two pigs together don't always make bacon. (OK, sometimes they do.)

(PS - As for your intern lunch - clearly your wife doesn't read your blog. I hope.)

[Brad Kanus]

17th street,

great point and put in the perfect way.

My wife not only doesn't read my blog - she has no idea I can read and write. She thinks I'm there to move heavy things and mow.

[L David]

^^^ You forgot be a walking ATM.

[Peg]

Tears of laughter are coursing down my face as I type this. Your post was hilarious and and so insightful! Men can't help gawking at women; it's your genes/jeans. Now that I'm an older, married, overweight lady, comments from men no longer bother me. HOWEVER, for many years I walked a mile each way to work past what seemed to be an unending line of construction sites. It was a gauntlet of sexual harrassment and embarrassing comments it took me a long time to get over. Still, I get that men are pre-programmed to act like lechers when they spot a pretty female. As long as they don't act on their hormone-induced desires, I believe in "sticks and stones. . . . but words will never hurt me."

P.S. I'm going to share this with my gay brother and see what he has to say about himself ;-}

[Steam Shower]

You may be somebody using a locker for the first time in your life or you may be a seasoned gym rat. Good locker room etiquette should still be practiced. Do not break the following rules, and both you and your neighbors will have a better locker room experience.