You Can't Make This Shit Up

I gave my "friend" from my hometown the heave-ho during the holidays. He was depressing me and I was already depressed. I won't go into the straw that broke the camel's back but let me share some vignettes with you.

The gym we went to had three floors. I told him that the third floor had the stationary bikes, the aerobics room, some extra weights and machines and a "hot yoga" room.

"Hot yoga?" he asks with interest.

I honestly didn't know what it was. I said it was new. They just put it in.

We went to the grocery store later and he saw one of the gym's young, female personal trainers there. He told her he recognized her and asked if she taught any hot yoga classes. She said no, she just did the personal training. He told her he just got his membership and he was interested in taking some classes.

Another time, he approached one of the other female personal trainers and asked her if she taught the hot yoga classes. She said no.

He never approached any of the male trainers. He never inquired at the desk about when the classes were. He just asked these pretty, fit female trainers if they taught the classes. Gawd nose what was going through his head. Did he imagine that they'd be maintaining erotic yoga poses in a steamy room with beads of perspiration dripping from their faces? Or did he think it would just be "hot" as "sexy" yoga???

I don't know if any of you go to the gym. But I find it really irritating when people take a couple of dumbbells off the rack and then stand right in front of the rack to do their set preventing anyone from using any of the nearby weights. He was one of those guys.

We started to work out separately because I didn't want to be seen with him. Ogling the ladies and blocking the weights. And saying stupid things like "Curls for the girls!"

Now, remember people; this guy is 48 years old and 100 lbs overweight. 253 at 5'8".

He kept insisting that we move in together. In his mind we'd be these swinging bachelors probably. And we'd come up with a get-rich-quick scheme and all our problems would be over. One time I told him I had an idea: Prostitution. We'd put his ass out on the street and I'd be his pimp. He laughed. Then he said; "Imagine it though. You'd probably have to fuck these F-A-T, O-L-D women!"

I replied; "Yeah. And imagine the female prostitutes having to fuck fat, old men."

"Yeah, but they're all crack-heads." he says, obviously referring to female prostitutes. I could only shake my head. In the first place, not all prostitutes are crack-heads. Secondly, just because a person is a crack-head, it wouldn't mean nothing matters. Third, I think a guy who is such a combination of desperate and cruel that he would take advantage of a person's addiction to obtain sexual gratification is far viler than anything he imagines a crack-whore is.

That wasn't the first time this 48 year old, 253 lb out of shape guy made critical statements about fat, old women.

Lot's of other stuff. But I decided, okay. I don't like this guy. He's stupid. But what can he do to change that? He's lonely, so I'll associate with him as a work-out partner, in that I'll walk (plod at 3x slower than my normal walking pace) to the gym with him. I'll help him lose some weight. Take the pressure off his bad hips.

He stepped on the scales one day and was down to 247. I said that was great. We'd check again in a week and I guaranteed he'd be at 240. So, a week goes by. He gets on the scale. 259. What can you say? What is there to say? Pretty depressing and bleak. He returns to his locker to get his stuff.

And this part is why I entitled this post "You can't make this shit up."

I hear him drop something and exclaim in frustration. Turns out his gym-bag was open. And his goddamned box of fucking chocolates fell out and they spilled over the change-room floor!!!

The stupid mother-fucker is desperate to lose weight and he's got a goddamned box of chocolates in his gym-bag that he took to the gym!

As I type this, it occurs to me that I'm being unfair to someone with definite problems. But on the other hand, this guy has no problem with condemning women for being fat and old. Because he's stupid. Which, as I say, is not his fault. We don't condemn other people for their handicaps. Which, at the end of the day, is nothing but depressingly hopeless.

By the way; what does he mean by "old"? On one of the subsequent nights when I felt obliged to socialize over at his place, we were watching the tv and some ad came on for some holiday resort and the happy white family running down the beach included a wife/mom who looked more like she belonged in a beer commercial. I don't normally talk like this, but I was drunk and stoned and reacting to my environment. "Christ! Look at the body on her." I said.

Drum-roll please.

"Yeah, but she's old man." He said.

I couldn't take it any more: "You're a real fucking idiot!"

He looked genuinely upset: "Hey man, she's squeezed out a couple of kids ... " (Remember it's likely the case that the group of them are all actors, unrelated to each other!)

"Dude. She's only in her mid-thirties at the most! She's younger than you are!"

He became subdued and silent.

Obviously one can start to use words like "sexism" and "patriarchy" when reading this post. And they're entirely appropriate. I'm not going to say that patriarchy itself is the end-product of this total cretinism. But I dare say a good deal of its support comes from this source.

Time to type other things ...