#GymTales: Pipes And Tats Edition

There’s a guy at my gym who looks like this photo except he doesn’t totally look like this photo because he has a head and one of those ridiculous disgusting long Millennial goatherder beards but anyway he has massive pipes that are covered in tattoos which is total catnip to me but he always wears a hat and earphones and stares at the floor which are all international gymbro code for leave me alone so I always leave him alone because I’m a total gymbro but I still totally want to be his boyfriend just so I don’t have to be secretly subversive about using the mirrors to stare at his arms when he walks by me staring intently at the floor as if he’s fascinated by a sprinting ant or something but since I clearly will never be his it’s-not-creepy-to-stare-at-his-arms boyfriend I’ve always been at least hoping to get one of those imperceptible gymbro nods from him where your eyes accidentally meet so you do that a tiny spasm in the back of your neck that lifts your face one degree as if to say hey gymbro I acknowledge your existence gymbro and I guess I don’t totally secretly want you to die gymbro so here’s a perfunctory hey gymbro and now get the hell out of my way and never lock eyes with me again gymbro but my muscle tattoo pipes gymbro dude here never even gives me that polite gymbro courtesy so I assume I’m totally invisible to him so anyway I was minding my own beeswax doing deadlifts today while he was doing chest things halfway across the room and I was on my fifth rep when I heard someone shout hey from his general area and it had to be him because the only other person in the gym was a woman who clearly had done her hair up fancy and nice just to get it all sweaty on the treadmill which isn’t my problem but seriously what’s the point of going to all that trouble to fix your hair up nice in the morning only to ruin it a few hours later in a deluge of head sweat but like I said not my problem and anyway that big bellowing manly hey clearly wasn’t from her so oh my god my muscle tattoo pipes gymbro dude not only noticed me but he was actually heying me which made me panic and do a quick mental inventory of how my butt and lats might look in the gym clothes I was wearing because that was the view he had and if I had on my especially cool gymbro shoes which I did so thank goodness for that small miracle but anyway he was actually heying me and play it cool Jake play it cool because he probably wants a date so don’t look too eager or excited and even though it was technically rude and distracting and uncool and even kind of dangerous to hey me in the middle of a set of deadlifts he gets a pass because I mean just look at him and then he said hey again and I knew here comes the marriage proposal because he’s totally impressed with my butt and my lats and my especially cool gymbro shoes and my form which is especially hard to maintain when you’re doing deadlifts and he clearly thinks I’m a rockstar at it and play it cool Jake play it cool because at this point he’s all yours and there’s no way he’ll ever say anything bad or critical about you and here comes the marriage proposal here it comes here it comes but instead he yells pull your shoulders back you’re gonna hurt yourself in a voice that had the subtext of you’re a stupid idiot and stop it with your stupid idiotness and that’s pretty much the opposite of a marriage proposal and even though technically this meant he’d noticed me I was crushed and well shit.