There is something to be said for trying hard. I’ve realized that I have a deficiency: I can’t stop thinking about getting a boyfriend. I call it a deficiency because I think there should be more to life than just that but my nature being what it is, I think about it subconsciously. People always say that it’ll hit you when you least expect it.
That being the case, I suppose it’ll never happen.
I’ve been deceived many a time by men, mainly because I’ve placed them on too high a pedastal and more often than not, I’m too stupid to see what I don’t allow myself to see from the beginning. But perhaps that is being a little too harsh on myself. I’ve also fallen into a rut of sorts and have not met anyone available who makes me walk into walls because I’m so distracted.
But somehow, I always find myself in the middle of making the biggest ass out of myself even before I can catch myself from falling.
Case in point: I have been wanting to do a triathlon for a while now and have been doing the swim part of my training at the Red Cross.
Enter Cristian, stage left. A handsome, bronzed man from Argentina who is a swim instructor and happens to be training for a tri as well. I start talking shop with him and find him accessible. He knows of another trainer who is an Ironman.
“Give me your number. I’ll put the two of you in contact.” No problem whatsoever. What normally would have been a struggle between ”what is this fool talking about?” and “I haven’t got time for this,” turned into a contest of rubber arm twisting. As easy as pie.
I had already given him my number before I could even think.
The days that followe, however, brought no call from his friend, leading me to believe that he, in fact, lead me on. So much for that.
That perception changed when he asked if his friend had called. We ended up talking shop until he was called away by a friend. I stood there, on my own, when a fellow lane mate called to me. Strange, I thought, we never talked in the pool… I crouched by her and she told me discreetly that I had toilet paper stuck to my ass. Immediately, I thought back to the guilty moment when I lined the seat with paper and forgot to peel the paper off.
We became fast friends after that.
Normally, before swim practice, we have warm ups. Cris sometimes gives the warm up and in one particular exercise, we do crunches which involve laying on the ground and holding out your legs straight. With the students in his class (he does advanced level), he normally takes off a shoe and stands on the stomach of the person, to make sure their stomach is tight. This day, he did it to everyone. I normally have a white suit on (and no, it’s not transparent) and when he got to me, he extra-, uber- cleaned his foot and said, “I don’t want to get your suit dirty.” He could’ve even dirtied my name and I still would not have minded.
And for some reason, I keep getting plagued by embarrassing moments when I’m around this man. I don’t feel the butterflies in my stomach nor the flush of cheeks when I talk to him. Probably helps that I don’t.
So this plague continues when I am in warm ups a few days later. Cris arrives late and the exercises were taken over by another instructor. We normally face the pool when the warms up happen and a minute into the stretches, in strolls Cris. He sets down his bag, strips and kicks off his shoes. In he jumps while we are doing arm rolls.
“Okay! Spread your legs and bend to the front.”
I do as I’m told and to my horror I see that my bathing suit does not quite have the power to repress a certain growth of hair in a certain part. I look up and to complete my horror, Cris emerges from the water, right in front of me. I could have run wildly into the bathroom but I realized it was way too late. I couldn’t even look at him.
Today, as I spoke to him about training, we talked about the 70.3 he’s going to be doing. He suggested I do it too. I open my mouth to protest and what I was suffering all through swim practice of a a bit of gas stuck in my throat, croaks out as I say “no.”
I don’t know why in particular so many embarrassing things happen to me while I talk to him. It isn’t all that normal but I think that there is no way around it now. Did he notice? Did he even care? I don’t know but I think my only option now is just to keep at it and “tri” to be me.
