There are secrets and betrayals we must take to the grave, as to utter them would cause untold destruction. There are opinions we can never admit, secret crushes we can never act upon, and sworn enemies blissfully unaware they are at war, because nobody says it out loud. But I cannot hold back this confession any longer. It burns inside me, a raging fire that will consume me unless I finally get it out in the open. And it’s all for you, straight guys at my gym. At last, the truth: yes, I am in love with each and everyone of you.
I’ve been going to the gym now for over a decade on and off and, I have to admit, I’ve fantasised about every single straight man I’ve ever seen close to collapse on the stair master, or retching with effort taking on a full load of weights at the lat pulldown. You’re just all so fascinating, so inspiring, in your own way that I, a gay man, am simply powerless to resist your charms.
Let me count the ways in which I adore you.
1. The way you change into or out of your gym gear
The lengths you will go to to stop me from seeing your precious, enchanting genitals, all to protect me, of course, as you know the mere sight of your shrivelled dong and its two hanging boulders would spoil me for all for eternity – no other man could compare to you.
Will it be the charming “squirming behind a towel” dance – which perfectly shows off your incredible natural rhythm, by the way – or the sitting down and wriggling very carefully out of your sodden gym shorts, letting them fall to the ground like a calf slopping out of a heifer.
Maybe you’ll just walk around with it pathetically hanging out for a while, like a mushroom rolling around a dinner plate, daring me to look.
2. How you shower
Entranced as I am by your flawless physique – complete with prison tattoos with totally up-to-date references, like Chinese symbols and huge tribal patterns across your delicate, milky moobs – I can’t tear my eyes away from you as you shower.
You helpfully leave the door open and elaborately wash your brutally shaved wang while I try to use the loo and wash the sweat off my face. And if I happen to catch a glance of you for a millisecond as you reach around and pick fluff out of your arsehole, you glare at me like I’m coming toward you with a huge dildo between my teeth and back away. It’s hot.
Every time you protect your sainted masculinity with a scowl and a flick of your flannel, my heart FLUTTERS.
3. Your locker room behaviour
The biggest treat of all, the one that really gets my breathing going, is when you posture and prance around the changing room, talking in great detail about whichever lucky, completely invented woman you had in your bed the night before.
As you describe all the things you definitely didn’t do to her, my mind wanders and I dream that it was I, not her, who got to lie under you for a thrilling 180 seconds in your crispy, slightly musky, off-white bed linen. If only it were me who got to stare disinterestedly at your ceiling and watch a spider spin a web while you half-heartedly tweak my nipple and break into a hacking cough just as you speedily nut against my inner thigh. I can but dream.
And while you hug your bros and ruffle each other’s hair – all totally naked – your cry of “NO HOMO” lets me know I’m never far from your thoughts, but should know my place.
4. The things you say about gay people
We’re lucky, the LGBT community, that any heterosexuals want to talk about us at all, really, so when you give us your attention, it really feels like the sun is upon us. As I catch the snatches of your mildly homophobic chatter while my iPod goes silent between Selena Gomez songs, I praise the Almighty that you’ve finally noticed us.
If you take a moment to talk to your hysterically steroid addicted pals about how rubbish my weights technique is, it swells my pride only further. You can see me! Finally, I exist.
5. How you look as you exercise
I try not to catch your eye – shy as I am – but I must confess after a workout I run straight to Tesco, buy a large swede or a melon and take it home to sit with it between my legs, fantasising it’s your head. And then I picture you lifting a dumbbell and look down tenderly on what I imagine to be your bright red, shiny balding head – face straining like a baby with colic – and dream of what I would say were you to place your head there for real.
You look like you’re about to defecate into your Lycra every time you lift, but don’t worry. It’s endearing. I like a risk-taker.
6. The way your hog all the machines
Your refusal to budge from any machine fills me with admiration. So masculine, so intimidating! I watch the rest of them – the women and the other gay men – quake in fear and confusion, or debate whether to come up to you and tell you to sod off, and I know that I have truly found my alpha male. But when will I be your beta gay?
To come to use a machine and find your mouldy towel draped over it, like a flag plonked into the snow at the North Pole, feels like an honor. As I look around the room to see where you are, and find you standing leering at a woman who’s doing squats while you wipe dried flecks of protein shake from your full, wet mouth, I know that I must wait. This is your time, my musclebound king.
7. How you look at women
What self-respecting gay man wouldn’t die to change places with the women at my gym, anyway? No matter where they go to do their programme, however many dark corners they find to congregate and exercise in private, you seek them out. Oh, that you would stop me and ask me your bullshit questions or offer to show me how to lift a kettle-bell.
They really don’t know they’re born, do they? If I were them, I wouldn’t do what they do – try their best to be polite and get on with what they’re doing in the hope that amiable indifference will make you go away – I’d give you my full attention and do exactly as you say. Because you are FASCINATING.
And when you’ve told me all you know, 30 seconds after coming up to me, and you walk away, I would trace my finger down my own wretched torso, imagining it were your hand touching me, not my own.
8. The fact you get to do all of the above
Equality? I don’t believe in equality. Some gym members are more equal than others. Yes, we may pay the same monthly fee and have access to the same machines and classes, but it is your kingdom, my lords, and I can only ever be a visitor. That you allow me into your world at all thrills me beyond compare. And even though you have yet to invite me into your most majestic of throne rooms – the accessible toilet where you take all your selfies and your steroids – it is enough for me simply to be near you.
So, yes, straight men at my gym, you are right. Us gay guys are in love with you, we will bum you at the first opportunity and everything you do, every part of your hench, honed body, is endlessly fascinating and appealing. While it’s true we also want to have sex with every other straight man in the universe, you are the Holy Grail.
I only wish you knew just how special you are.
More like this:
– Where not to meet your next lover: The gym
– Do you really need a six-pack to make an impact?
– How to look in the mirror
– Dates I’ve been on: The Sculptor
