I can't run it, run it...

The gym. Not a place I'm all that familiar with. Since returning from break however, I have tried to take advantage of the fact that it is only across the street and it is free (well, free in the sense of I don't need to pay now so much as later with the rest of my piling loans).

So this semester I have enlisted two of my friends, the Matts, to keep me occupied when VH1 marathons or my Rhetoric reading are just not enough. Matt 1 has been talking about "toning up" for as long as I can remember while showing me pictures of his inspiration in the form of half-naked men with far-too-toned-to-be-a-realistic-goal bodies. The other Matt is a little intimidating with his burley muscles and intense attitude about exercise machines but regardless, they are getting me off my couch and onto a much more uncomfortable yet beneficial bike seat.

It was in my second visit to the gym that I realized why I'm not a regular: Gym snobs.

Usually the place is filled with the whole hockey team (no complaints there) or some other sports teams but then there are the snobs (which are almost always girls).

I approached the "girly" weight lifting space, filled with the pretty colored weights wrapped in a protective rubber and spanning 2-8lbs. to find glaring up at me from the floor were about 6 girls lying on mats. They wore their sports bras and leggings with their pink iPods strapped to their already skinny arms (if you're comfortable strutting around in public wearing just a bra, then I'm pretty sure you're in enough shape but, I digress). They didn't move aside for me. I couldn't help but feel out of place in my sweats and baggy t-shirt so I decided to join the boys in their area.

No pretty colors. No protective rubber coverings. Just rusty metal weights in huge increments. I made a joke about tetanus being some sort of male work-out secret. I laughed. Matt 1 cracked up. Matt 2 lectured me on the serious nature of our gym business.

Maybe I'm not meant to fit into this physically fit environment. Or maybe I just need to work-out long enough to pull off the bra and leggings look. Nah, I'll just go at odd hours of the day when no one is there and I stroll along on the treadmill in my sweatpants.