It was the closest a stationary bike has come in simulating riding a real bike.
The recreation center is a pretty fucking weird place.
It is a center. For recreation.
It is the center. Of recreation.
If all recreational activity on the University of Minnesota campus were an amoeba, this would be the nucleus.
If all recreational activity were a target, Robin Hood would hit the Rec center. Now think of your own meaningless metaphor, remember to place Rec in the center.
So I was riding the bike and lifting some shit and looking at all these other people, students, professors, riding and running and lifting shit all around me.
It was kind of enthralling.
Dudes act/look/are fucking weird/funny/crazy in the gym. You can tell by a dudes stances and facial expressions - mid lift - how seriously they take themselves when they go to work out.
1. There are the dudes that are super ripped and super intense and have missile guidance systems in their brains that direct them from weight-rack to weight-rack. They operate with such efficiency that only two guys of this variety ever lift together at one time. Silent, intense, massive. Lift, spot, lift, spot, these kind of dudes stand like the last mastodon on a frozen butte, facial expression locked in a totally neutral, gray mask of muscle.
2. Then there are the ripped guys that are there to hang out because they have been hanging out in weight rooms since the seventh grade, and now it's just what they do whenever nothing else is going on. This variety of dude usually rolls in a crew of four or five really tall guys and one short guy. They kick it around the bench while one guy casually benches 500 lbs. and the others sac-tap and towel snap each-other. I would hazard that for this kind of guy, three to five hours of any given day is spent in a gym or weight-room of some kind with only about 30 or 45 minutes of actual weight lifting taking place.
3. There are the old guys. The old guys always look like they are about to fuckin' keel over, but I have yet to see one do so. Old guys usually fly solo, unless they are playing racquet-ball - old guys love racquet-ball - in which case they have enough people for doubles plus a couple of extras who kick it outside of the glass and talk business and hock loogies on the carpet.
4. There are the really fat guys that walk on the treadmill with a five pound dumbbell in each hand. They usually wear grey above-the-knee shorts that are made out of T-shirt material and really clean Newbalance sneakers. I have seen a really fat guy talking on a bluetooth, alternately reading Time magazine and drinking Powerade™ in one hand, lifting a 5er in the other, and walking on a treadmill with the pace of a toddler (really small steps, knees turned in, arrhythmically alternating between the heels and balls of his feet) all at the same time.
5. There are the freshmen/dudes that have never been in a gym before and have the heroine sheik/sickly vegan look. These dudes always do the elliptical cross-trainer machine and can do more chin-ups than you because they weigh 95 lbs.
6. There are the Hell's Angels looking dudes with super gnarly tattoos and burly beards/shaved heads. These dudes range in age from 17 to 60ish and are in varying stages of beefy.
7. And there are the dudes that are there a couple times a week to ride the stationary bike, listen to slayer, lift a little and hit the sauna.
There are a lot of kinds of dude.
Thank me Captain Obvious.
While I was being #7 this evening, I was thinking about how these different kind of gym dudes offer a glimpse into different kinds of male personalities. The setting of "The Gym" engenders interactions that make it almost instantly apparent who the alpha males are and who the beta males are.
I'm sure that one google search could provide me with innumerable studies, flow charts, and taxonomies of the different forms of male-ness that have been classified by psychologists and other bullshit of that ilk, but I'm trying to work this shit out by myself. Here is what I've got so far:
Alpha Male: Type One - The guy that leads a group and has to be in charge at all times. This dude can hang out with other dudes as long as the other dudes are cool with always taking a beta position. Type ones always have to have the biggest dick in the room.
Alpha Male: Type Two - The guy that can kick it with anyone and doesn't care who the "leader" is. Type twos are down to take the lead sometime, but are also alright with other people stepping in and taking control.
Alpha Male: Type Three - The lone wolf. This dude can't really hang out ever because he is super into his own shit and doesn't really like other people. The lone wolf is super assertive and confrontational but only if another Alpha questions his autonomy.
Beta Male: Type One - Dudes that are not the one in control but aspire to acquire Alpha status.
Beta Male: Type Two - Dudes that are not in control and don't care.
Beta Male: Type Three - The guy that chooses Beta status and actively works to maintain it.
Beta Male: Type Four - Dudes that were Alpha at one point but got relegated to Beta status because they fucked up too much.
Outlier Male: Type One - The stringent feminist guy who lives to subvert systems of patriarchy.
Outlier Male: Type Two - The dude who can successfully act any of these types without actually being it or inadvertently becoming the Type he is acting over time.
This list is incomplete and inaccurate. Dudes can be mixes of any number of these types, or a dude can shift over time from one to another.
I'm sure context is a key factor.
I mostly need to write and think about the shit I have been reading and the shit I have been writing and re-read the shit I have been reading and then write about it some more.
Duh.
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