Friday, October 12, 2007

Why are Exercise & Dating Such Chores?

I joined a gym last month after years of (foolishly) denying I needed to go. The Lucille Roberts in my neighborhood was having a membership deal too good to pass up, so I took the plunge.

I've been doing 30 minutes on the treadmill at a 2.0 incline at 4.2 mph and I'm burning about 200-300 calories. I feel so good after I'm done and it makes me wonder why I never got into it before. Oh, that's right, I was married to a schmuck who needed me to take care of everything so he could partake in his addictions with full gusto. But I digress...I feel the endorphins waking up and once they start running through me, my head clears out.

The funniest part is that I don't feel not one bit selfish by taking this time for myself. I need that time. I have found that "alone time" is one of the most important things in my life. I have a wonderful support system who helps me with my daughter and it give me the go-ahead to take care of business.

But it's still a chore. I sweat, I pant and I generally hate it. Everyone keeps saying I need a work-out buddy. Nope, that won't work for me. I don't want to share the responsibility for my exercise with anyone else. That way, if I stop going, I have no one to blame by myself; I can't say that since my buddy stopped going, I stopped going too.

In other news, another R has asked me to dinner. Actually I said it was safer to start with coffee and he made me laugh by responding, "How much trouble can we get into at dinner?" We're having problems getting our schedules worked out. We've been IM'ing for about 6 weeks and he seems perfectly nice.

But then again, in the virtual world, all men seem perfectly nice. And they all like taking walks on the beach. And none of them mind going shopping with their girlfriends. They're all looking for that special lady (they never say "woman" or "person", it's always "lady") with whom they can happily watch movies on the couch. They all have parents who raised them to respect their "ladies" and they all love kids and pets. They like going out to eat and on the other hand, a fair number of these men like to cook.

But let's face it, folks...it's all about sex...isn't it? Well, I guess if you're gonna sweat there are so many more fun ways to do it then by exercising...