Observations from the field

The secretive, elusive and—DUH—stealthy stealthfier has developed a heightened feeling of comfort in his new brodude gymnasium surroundings and is escalating from his initial timidity and instinct for social self-preservation to now displaying a precipitous drop in common sense and a brazenness not traditionally observed in any heavily populated, non-stand-and-model gym habitat. To wit: Observe how he has abandoned his heretofore steadfast habit of sneaking up-the-nose-to-the-harshly-lit-ceiling stealthfies from his sweaty lap and begun to purposefully suck in his gut and blithely twist his iPhone for a quickie (a quickie STEALTHFIE, perverts) with devil-may-care concern for detection, focus, observable F-stop comprehension or rudimentary photographic composition.

What could cause this abrupt deviation from his deeply entrenched norms? In-the-field brocial anthropologists have posited the highly plausible theory that he’s nauseated to the point of profound disorientation by today’s brodude-gymnasium-sound-system song playlist titled Painful, Instantly Forgettable Songs That Each Repeat The Same Six Words Ad Nauseam Until You Poop Uncontrollably On The New Equipment Or More Preferably Just Take Slightly More Brazen Gym Stealthfies.

We will need to undertake more rigorous in-the-field observation to establish a possible causal relationship. Hopefully with a slightly less shitty playlist.

(CONFIDENTIAL NOTE to the guy in the tight gray technical shirt and butt-hugging black shorts so you all better not read it: Dude. I’m as addicted to my iPhone as the next powerless-over-checking-Facebook-every-three-minutes guy, but even I know to put away my damn phone WHEN I’M LITERALLY PEEING NEXT TO SOMEONE—ESPECIALLY ME—AT A URINAL. It honestly looks like you’re pretending to be on your phone so you can not-so-secretly peek over the partition at my winkie. And that is NOT the story of how we met that I want to tell our grandchildren.)

(CONFIDENTIAL NOTE to the guy in the red sleeveless shirt and loose gray gym shorts so you all better not read it and I really mean it this time: Never stop jumping rope.)

Day 8 of hunting the elusive Alluring Calfed Dudebro

My frequent visits to his occasional gym habitat have paid off in rich abundance; he made his third appearance in just over a week this morning. My attempts to engage him via traditional tribal Gym Dudebro greeting rituals — faux-offhand-doesn’t-mean-anything-I-just-happened-to-be-looking-in-your-direction sub-second eye contact and near imperceptible head twitches of human acknowledgement — have not been returned, so my camouflage game is either totally on fleek or my presence is non-alarming or we-all-know-it’s-not-true-but-I-still-have-to-say-it-in-my-report-in-the-name-of-accurate-anthropology not interesting enough to notice.

Sigh.

Aside from his aloof courting rituals, he exhibits a sophisticated system of characteristics and behaviors for attracting and selecting a suitable mate. His ‘90s-small-town-high-school-wrestler-crenellated-bowl-cut bangs keep potential suitors cautiously at bay, while his habit of wiping his brow with the hem of his shirt reveals a corrugated curtain of abs that are as impossible to tear yourself away from as a Siren’s fabled song.

At this writing, he has retreated into the fogs of the storied Brigadoon from whence he came, but not without a final, beguiling presentation of his eponymous alluring calves to the sparse early-morning population of his occasional gym habitat.

I shall keep vigilant watch — always in super-cute shoes, just in case — for his next appearance.