An Emotional Raping

After cancelling my date and proceeding to inhale a week’s worth of food for dinner tonight, I decided to head to the gym downstairs with my seemingly-pregnant tummy looking the way it did as opposed to role playing along while I watch re-runs of Teen Mom 2.  Being that I was supposed to be out with the dentist but instead opted to get intimate with my crockpot, I contemplated how the last two times I had dates I ran into M&M, getting increasingly sad over the fact that I may have missed a chance at another run-in with him.  I then realize how sickened I am with myself at creating my own romantic superstitions.  Next thing you know I’ll be wearing the same exact outfit I saw him in EVERY SINGLE DAY of my life in hopes to see him again…oh wait…I’m apparently not too far from that…

I get down into the gym and, through the glass entry door, I see that there’s some hot Brawny-Buff dude lifting weights by the stairmaster, which happens to just be my go-to machine.  I think to myself, “YESSSSS!  Stand right there so you can watch my ass muscles contract back and forth as I climb aimlessly towards nowhere….we’ll see what else you’ll be liftin later babyyy.”  Yes…that’s right gentlemen I am the ultimate creeper at the gym.  In the mirror, I watch you lift weights and do pushups, while simultaneously picturing you lifting me and doing pushups on top of me.  Beware.  Anyway…still checking out this tan and tall workout eye candy of a man, I get inside only to further realize that HOLY SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK MY LIFE!!!  It’s M&M!  RUN RUN RUN JAY RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!

…………….no.  NO!  As I immediately halt in place before moving any further, careful not to be seen, I somehow talk myself out of running out of the gym and all the way back upstairs.  This is MY gym God dammit!  You work out at the 24-hour fitness down the street because you said that this gym doesn’t have heavy enough weights for your super duper big obnoxious muscles you DICK what are you DOING down here?!  Being the dramatic over-reactor and even faster thinker that I am, I contemplate in that instant just dropping to the floor, crawling out, packing up my entire apartment, and demanding I be able to break the lease the very next morning as to not be anywhere near the building for the rest of my life.  It’s not fair!  I can’t even PREPARE for these moments!  Not only is it completely out of my control, it is completely against my will and without my consent; I am forced to run into him, forced to see him, forced to get upset and emotional, and even further forced to pretend the latter cycle does not perpetuate itself whenever I do.  I’d like to call it an emotional raping: a moment in life when you are unwillingly confronted with either the sight, sound, or even idea of somebody who not only broke your heart, but also pranced and continues to prance around teasingly and menacingly as your poor, broken, somehow-still-beating heart lay pathetically bleeding to the fullest extent of their knowledge and delight. 

Ok…just get on the stairmaster Jay…that’s it.  OK he didn’t see you yet…ok get on, enter your weight, level, time, and STEP, STEP, STEP.  Shit how am I fucking sweating already?!  My heart is racing already, my hands are shaking, when I see him approaching out of the corner of my eye then *THUD!*  I pretend not to notice him come over and hit the machine with his 100,000,000 lb. weight and instead continue to step and pretend to give a fuck about what song I wanna find on my ipod.  “HAAAAAAAY doll!” he says happily as he mildly shoves me on the shoulder.  As if my song selection is more important and quickly looking over and returning my eyes to my phone, I simply reply with, “Oh hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii M&M what’s up?!”  pretending to sound completely uninterested yet polite in response.  We make some small talk, about God knows what, as I continue to keep from looking at him and instead step, step, stepping intently as we talk, quietly replying with, “Ooooh ok cool” to whatever he’s saying, while loudly thinking, “I HATE YOU BECAUSE I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

After very small talk, he gets back to his workout and I to mine, then eventually, after 5 or so minutes, comes back over to say bye.  If him being there within ten feet of me working out felt like shit, then him now leaving felt a hundred times shittier.  I know you know that utter shit feeling, the “fuck you I hate that you’re here!” amidst the “no no no don’t go!!!!”  Before he leaves, our eyes meet and we look at each other for what I believe to be a micro-moment of nostalgia, a current-yet-fleeting recurrence of how we used to talk, how we used to feel, how we used to look at each other, and I suddenly, almost unbeknownst to myself, then realize how I still do talk to, feel for, and look at him…and more so how he doesn’t.  Four seconds…all of this in the four seconds our eyes were connected….  He walks away and out, I turn around and climb in place.  How indicative of my dilemma.