Welcome to the Jungle

What you are reading now is an expert collaboration of friends, united in the name of blog awesomeness. It is the brainchild of one too many beers and one too many good ideas. Our goal is to write about what we want, when we want to write it. Our interests are mostly similar, but our differences should make this space really fun. There are no rules (except to type nothing that could get any of us in trouble with the law, our mothers, or Ph.D. advisers).

My name is Fred, and I'll get the ball rolling by explaining (another reason) why I hate to go to the gym. Now, I like the idea of physical fitness very much. Even some gyms can be nice places. The one I go to is clean, well-lit, makes above-average smoothies, and sometimes girls smile at me when I work out, which is nice. This stands in sharp contrast to some other gyms I've attended in my life:

• This gym (Summer 2007) was almost entirely populated by the elderly. It smelled like Lotrimin AF (not just the men's locker room -- the whole gym), and the staff did not provide free towels for early morning showers. So, why did I really like this place? With Grandma and Grandpa too busy moving 1-lb medicine balls around their flabby middles, I had the weight room to myself most of the time. And, as you'll learn later in this post, pure, Into The Wild-like isolation is my key to a successful workout.
• This gym (Fall 2006 - Spring 2007) was in a part of New Jersey that everyone -- even people from other parts of New Jersey -- hates. The average car in the parking lot was a BMW 530i, even though nobody inside sounded remotely intelligent. Let's just say a lot of "waste management consulting" went on in this part of the Jerz. My high school had a better locker room, and I've already written about all the male genitalia I saw while attending this gym. Free bath towels were a plus, although I have fears that they weren't washed after each use.
  
• I actually really liked this gym (Summer 2005-Summer 2006). It's a shame that it's in the worst location possible, surrounded by 18-wheelers and bad drivers of ethnicities I won't mention. The one time I technically did something I never should have done in order to improve my physical strength* (*Oops! Call Congress), it was at this gym.
  
• ...AND the Rutgers gyms sucked so bad, I will not even respect them with a link.

From the above list, I may have convinced you that I know a thing or two about gyms. (I've at least convinced you that I switch gyms like ripped Italian dudes from Staten Island switch boyfriends.) I really do like to work out, and sometimes I work out regularly. (Other times I smoke cigars and drink Scotch until I can't feel feelings anymore, but that's not really my point.) My point is that I hate working out around other people, which is kinda uncomfortable to say.

So naturally, I'm going to write about it for you to read, since me being uncomfortable = AWESOME.

You see, it's a natural law of mankind that 10% of the people in any room are horrible, human-eating douchebags*. (*This may not be the case in schools, universities, or hospital maternity wards.) However, that ten percent figure turns into 33% when the room is a gym or fitness center. This is because horrible, human-eating douchebags also like to work out, specifically to get buff.

Think about all the really skinny people you know: how many of them would harm an insect, let alone another human? That's right, none of them. They don't care about getting big as much as they care about factor analysis or watching xkcd. Now, think about the giant, muscle-bound people you know. They're really scary, right? That's because they want to be that way. If a person isn't doing manual labor or playing pro sports for a living, they're building muscle only to make themselves look good to other people (lame) or to feel better about themselves (even lamer). They're the kind of person who thinks it's OK to resemble a bison, and that makes them horrible, human-eating douchebags.

And this HH-ED -- with their Tarzan-like ripped tank tops and ridiculously bulging muscles and inappropriate grunting and inappropriate locker room activity (the stories I can tell ::shudder::) -- makes going to the gym a miserable experience for my kind of person. You know who you are. Fitness is a challenge, but you kinda try hard sometimes because you feel your brain is too smart to die young. You might lift weights or cross-train, but nothing too serious. And when some behemoth comes up to you -- always too close -- takes the weight you're looking for so they can work out a muscle you never knew you had, a little part of you that used to want to be fit dies.

A skeptic might say, "Fred, you weak little man. Why not just ignore these people? You're clearly making excuses not to go to the gym." I would say, it's impossible to ignore someone who focuses every ounce of their effort on being noticed. Why do you think these guys wear ridiculous, pink popped-collar shirts when they're "at the club"? They want the attention, and because they're so good at it, they often get it. (I'll leave the skeptic's final point up to you, because I don't have an answer for it. Maybe I am making excuses, because I would rather sit at home and play Xbox. I sure do like video games.)

Now, I don't want you to come away from this blog post discouraged. There are ways around the HH-ED. For example, go to the gym before 6 PM. If your gym is split into two sections, one more hardcore than the other, stay out of the hardcore one. Whatever you do, stay away from mirrors -- HH-ED's cluster around them, like flies to a blue light. And remember, whenever you do get discouraged, that these girls all have herpes.

Stay classy.