“This guy looks like a huge fag”

There are three types of imaginary relationships I have with my favourite gym strangers. Sure, most of them I want to fuck, but there are others I would rather marry, and some that I hallucinate just being friends with. I’m writing this to say that I’m not simply a lecherous man; my intentions run deep, and they can be pure. It’s beside the point that none of these relationships could ever materialise, for thousands of reasons, including the fact that these people are straight (so, no sex) that I don’t know anything about golf (so, no friends) and that, well, I’m already married. But honestly most of the time I don’t even need to fantasise that I’m involved in their lives in any intricate way and will happily get my dose of straight acceptance – because that’s exactly what this is all about – if one of them happens to hold the door open for me as a basic courtesy when we’re both exiting the gym. I really don’t need much at all.

So here are some of my favourite straights.

Hat

Hat is a very sore point. He hasn’t shown up in weeks. But he used to be the king of the gym. He used to come in daily, do all sorts of weird, insanely advanced exercises that seemed to be a proprietary combination of regular weight training, power lifting, calisthenics, resistance bands, and off-the-wall cardio, and he never said a single word to another person – most of the bros talk to each other at some point – apart from one personal trainer who seemed to be his friend.

Hat got his nickname because he always wore a hat. It’s not very imaginative, because when you are in the presence of Hat your brain stops working completely and the control centre of your body suddenly transfers to your loins.

Hat had a perfectly serviceable handsome and inexpressive face, a laboratory-made body with long, lean, purposeful muscles, and he wore truly awful gym clothes because his whole thing was that he doesn’t care about looks, he’s all about function. To help you understand, he still wore those old Apple earphones with the cable. And we ate it up. The one incongruous fact that hinted at Hat not being a robot and engaging in some form of vanity – well, apart from going to the gym every day like an insecure maniac – was that he shaved his legs. And I mean kept right on top of that, a perfect clean shave every single week. Don’t know what that was all about. (The armpit hair was still there). Generally, I kinda hate shaved legs on men, but it worked for him. They were very nice legs.

Anyway, Hat’s gone. Get over it.

The three friends

This is a group of three New England friends in their mid-20s who went to college together (locally of course duh) then moved to The Big City, got jobs, and now live in a house share and are trying to live their generic bro / young professional lives before they all get married and produce offspring who will repeat the same pattern ad infinitum into the next century.

The three friends comprise long-haired friend, blond friend, and huge fag friend (more on that later). Together these people perfectly fill the three slots of desire I mentioned in the beginning: I would love to fuck huge fag friend, I would love to marry blond friend, and I would love to be friends with long-haired friend.

Long-haired friend is the nicest. He holds the door for me on the regular. He’s handsome with a nice body and I’m sure people would fancy him, but he’s Southern European, as am I, and I tend to go for something different.

Blond friend seems bland, responsible, and is so pale that he looks like he’s in a coma or at least like somebody who has been alive in the recent past, if not currently (complimentary). He is also a cyclist, and the bod is super fucking tight, plus he wears the best gym clothes out of anyone there. I honestly don’t know where the fit budget must come from. I think, if I could, I would readily swap lives with this man.

Huge fag friend is the most obnoxious of the three and has the most muscular body. Lovely chest, in particular, lovely armpits too. He loves to showcase both by wearing ludicrous cut-off shirts where so much of the sleeve / side fabric has been removed that it’s basically two narrow rectangular pieces of fabric, one on the front and one on the back of his body, scarcely held together by the neckline. He’s also very needy and try-hard, wants attention, wants to stand out as a bro.

Those three people are usually there every day, not necessarily all together, but you’ll get one or two daily for sure.

One time, long-haired and huge fag were in the locker room and I was the only other person there. Huge fag was flexing his muscles in the mirror, shirtless, and long-haired friend was supervising, with a look that said he has witnessed this sight far too often and could do without it, but has also grown to accept his friend for who he is. I was minding my own business. Then huge fag friend said: