It's time to address the student body. Or, more specifically, how every student seems to be facing a constant struggle to stand out while still remaining inconspicuous.
After avoiding the gym since my second year, I finally decided to use it while the facilities are still free. Here is a summary of what I saw. (This does not mean everyone who goes to the gym fits these descriptions.):
Girls, hidden under long pants, sweating on elliptical machines while staring morosely at glossy magazines like "Shape." I'm all for wanting to be fit but no one is going to have those abs with that waist and her breasts. I'll give anyone kudos for even attempting to work out, but forget how you look and focus on how you feel.
For the guys: I don't know where to begin. I think I can best sum up guys with an encounter I witnessed.
Guy One: "Hey Guy Two, what's up?"
Guy Two: "Gettin' big"
Also, I understand it helps your technique if you can watch yourself in the mirror during reps, but the way some guys watch their muscles flex makes me feel dirty. I think I have to agree with Fight Club's Mr. Durden and say it's like watching someone masturbate.
In an extreme contrast to the gym environment, two weeks ago I witnessed a large group of people socializing comfortably in their underwear without a single mention of being in or out of shape. I'm now convinced everyone should at some point attend an underwear party (It's pretty much how it sounds). For the most part, you don't see people hanging out in their underwear except in ads, but I think a lot of people would benefit from putting down "Shape" and "Men's Health" and seeing how real people actually look. No one at the party had the perfect body, but they had fun nonetheless.
Underwear parties also have rational benefits -- if you're trying to get someone naked by the end of the night, you don't have very far to go. I think that was the reasoning used by the guy who fed me a pick-up line. To him, I say it was an amusing but wasted effort.
Pick-up lines aside, the hardest part of that night was finding someone willing to go with me. I had a lot of friends who wanted to go so they could see scantily clad people, but they backed out as soon as I informed them underwear participation was mandatory. (Although I must add a lot of girls wore pajama bottoms which made those not wearing PJs seem a lot more naked.)
Despite being frequent gym goers, a lot of my friends missed out on an awesome party because they were afraid people would judge their bodies. If you exercise regularly and still feel self-conscious, you need to rework your goals. Striving to look a certain way is inherently flawed; why not strive to be hardcore? Train to run 10 miles or bike 50 miles. I finally decided on my own goal to win a bar fight. Or, to not shame my family, I'll settle for completing a tough climb at a rock climbing gym.
On a somewhat related note, considering next week is Spring Break, I think this would be a good time to point out that what happens there never stays there, no matter where you go. The underwear party included many of my classmates, so it's no shock that come Monday morning my professor asked about the party and made a joke about someone putting pictures online. (If this is true, I'd love the link.) For people planning to cut loose over Spring Break, do remember that everyone has a camera phone and drunken people have an odd way of remembering your most embarrassing moments. So, if you decide to go nuts and do something outrageous, make sure you're okay with everyone knowing about it.
Megan Hein is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality columnist. She can be reached at hein@cavalierdaily.com.
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