The Crunch gym was not the most expensive gym in town; in fact I would call it a midrange gym. It was prominently located but never too clean and usually lagged on the amenities: locker room, showers, towels etc. Still I liked the layout of the gym floor and it was the closest one to where I lived, Stuyvesant Town. Closest, being at least ten blocks away! It usually took me a good 15-20 minute walk to get to the gym. I did not need much cardio after that.
When I say Crunch was a midrange gym. Midrange classification also applies to its clientele. They were also midrange Manhattanites; not too rich, not too poor; not too successful, not a complete failure. But if you asked them each of them was a VP of something; usually you could not immediately tell what function they served.
Here was a group of people that saw each other religiously every day and still managed not to even exchange an occasional nod. There was this strange invisible and somewhat cyclical pecking order in the gym. What seemed to be at the top of the food chain were the incredible pretty people with extremely fit bodies. These were the gods, they ignored everyone, and socialized with only their kind, other gods. Then the second teer was the really good-looking people that were in way or another flawed; either unemployed currently, or a big spot on their forehead, bad haircut, or a torn muscle. Then came the normal looking people; the people you would walk by on the street and probably not pay much attention to. These were the most mellow of the bunch; don't get me wrong, we're still in Manhattan, so even their mellow is nothing like yours. Then below this midrange was the semi-ugly people; overweight, or too much bodyhair, not enough hair on their head, scars, bad tattoos, crooked noses, or just old --funny how age can put even the hottest person into this category. Then came the ugliest people; these people were so ugly, they were hot. What I have observed is, the ugliest people are also usually extremely fit and to make matters more complex they get to ignore even the gods, the most beautiful of the gym.
So the pecking order continued up and down and around the food chain; a whole gym full of superficial people, 90% of whom were gay and thought that NYC would not be the same city without their own sad original story to tell. What makes all of this funnier is the tagline of the Crunch Gyms: "No Judgements."
Some days I felt very at ease with this crowd of antisocial judgemental bodies and some days I broke a sweat just walking into the gym. I really can not tell you where I exactly fit in this mad world of muscle and fitness; perhaps in the middle somewhere.
I tried to make friends for the longest time at the gym with little success. Most people I attempted to talk to either ignored me or treated me like your everyday stalker. Along the way I met one or two friendly people of course. After all the good people are bound to be out there. I even regularly worked out with one or two. It was good to have gym buddies.
The gym was the modern day version of Cheers, the sitcom; "a place where everybody knows your name". Well not really they did not know your proper name, they knew your gym name. The gym name can be anything that identifies the person uniquely, with the exception of their real name. If you need to refer to someone in conversation and don't know their name, you have the gym name to fall back onto.
A gym name is usually connected with a physical attribute or certain behavior that belongs to the person being named:
- A guy that frequently wore a pair of "Harvard University" shorts could be named the "harvard guy".
- Someone who spends half his life in the tanning salon may be the "alligator".
- The biker guy who at some point in his life completely misplaced the distinction between having a little scent to his body and smelling like a homeless guy working out may be named the "Stink".
- A writer of children's books who has really long red wavey hair may be called "Samson".
- His snooty boyfriend that asked you your age, as the second question after asking your name, and then proceeded onto not talking to you when he found out you were not available for "fun" could be "Delilah".
- The actor who played the waterboard employee in Erin Brokovich, who also can be seen all over East Village on his rollerblades perhaps could be called "Mr. Wheels".
- ...
--This is of course a completely fictional list, provided here for illustration purposes. Any resemblance to real life characters is just a mere coincidence and perhaps one of the little mind games Manhattan plays on the unsuspecting.
