Stalking An Australian Hoplite at the Gym

This post was written 6 months ago, but never published. So here it is.

My gym is an international fitness franchise and has locations all over the world. So being the restless and 'lovesick' boy that I am, I of course had to check out the local facilities when I go abroad and I'm lucky enough to be back here again in the city by the Yarra.

The branches of my gym here in the city accommodate many very hot and attractive guys. From Greek gods to handsome hoplites, masculine scruff to the cute guy next door, you name it. If only there was some way a guy like me could make slow lazy love to them all.

A few days before this incident, a curious thought floated into my head.  And the thought was that if my current life wasn't real, and if I could start over and be born a hot guy in this city, what kind of hot guy would I like to be? How would I like myself to look and to move? Will that really solve my problems and make me happy? It was an impractical thought but still it came.

So cutting to the main guest of this post, he was this bad-boyish Australian hoplite that my heart got irrationally carried away again. It was similar to my infatuation for the dream boy from Montréal, you know the type that makes you fantasise about marriage and waking up to him in bed. But at least this time I am less crazy than I was four years ago having never even touched a man before in my life.

I first laid eyes on him when he walked in all tall, blonde and suited up from work. It was all very 'Collin Street' in the Melburnian saying or slang. I was working out in the free weights area when he walked over and occupied the last bench on the far left, getting ready for his killer chest exercises. He looked impeccable in his work-out clothes that accentuated his big arms, his wide back and those tanned strong legs. The way his blonde hair dovetailed over his perfectly chiseled face, those bright blue eyes and stubble studded male model jawline. It was out of this world.

Throughout the entire time he was there, I couldn't concentrate on my bicep curls. I tried as hard as I could not to stare like a crazy stalker, but in the end, even that didn't escape his notice. I guess he gets this a lot too from both guys and girls. Sometimes I don't know whether to look away in order not to make him uncomfortable, or to continue the eye-contact to let him know that I am checking him out. 

I couldn't explain it, but my heart was tensed on strings knowing that we are breathing the same air. All I wanted more than anything at that particular moment was for us to lie intimately in each other's arms and for him to tell me how much he loves me and that I love him. Stupid mind fantasies.

After what felt like the longest lingering behaviour on my part, I decided that I have to wake up now and walk away from this impossible dream and smitten trance. But one who has read my stories would know how well that has worked out for me in the past. 

Despite being physically away in the locker room from him, I couldn't get him out of my head. I wanted to catch a glimpse of his topless front chest and those hoplite abs to see how they look like. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm blinded by male desire.

So after a little bit more of loitering around here and there, I was in luck. He finally came into the locker room and undressed into his towel and shorts in preparation for the steam room. I too was headed for the steam room but wasn't sure if he was going to shower or get steamed up. For some reason, the showers and steam rooms are not very popular with the men here as they are back home. Members here tend to leave immediately after their work out. So no surreptitious cruising and hot homosexual fun? Come on!

Australian Hoplite went into the dry sauna with shorts when I was actually hoping he and I could sit in the more visually private steam room. In the spirit of not wanting him to think I'm stalking him, I took a detour and went into the steam room alone to try and get over him. 

But guess what? My weak heart and the slut in me changed my mind in less than a minute upon entering the steam room and I shamelessly walked across the tiled hall to the dry sauna to be close to him. I hear the inner voice go "Oh Jesus M, you have no shame. There's not a medical pill in the world that could cure you!

The moment I entered the dry sauna, you could feel that he knew something was up but could only keep that thought to himself. It's one of those scenarios where you know someone is hovering around you too much, but you can never confront it head on because then it would seem like you have insecurity issues in a 'we're all men here bro' world. Yes babe, I'm in here and I want to cuddle you, make out with you and fall into your golden arms over a romantic afternoon picnic under the shade of a maple tree. Just the two of us.

You wouldn't believe the close up view I have of his entire beauty in there. His chest, his arms, his abs and his quads. It was then while looking at him that I found my impractical answer to the impractical question I pondered earlier about what kind of hot guy would I want to be? On what scale? On what terms and on what looks? Him would be good. I want to be him. He must be on top of the world, I thought. Or as many of us tend to shallowly believe based upon appearance.

In the past, I would have crumbled to the ground on the inside as demonstrated in the many entries written over the years about my unresolved issues with hot guys that has its roots submerged in very bad self-esteem. 

But after going through so much emotional pain and therapy work to come out of such a dark and unhealthy state of mind, I was glad that I could now see and be around very hot guys and still stand firm with the will to move and carry on with my life as myself rather than push myself off the cliff to annihilation. In other words, I no longer blow out my own candle or extinguish my own light out of unworthiness in the presence of something seemingly brighter.

Anyway after a while, I started to feel bad about how my actions could have made him so uncomfortable. Even though he's a very hot guy, but he's a human being too. In the spirit of wanting to diffuse the tension and also to humanise him in the eyes of my unreasonable animal attraction, I decided to talk to him. 

Maybe by talking to him, I would start to see him as a person, an individual rather than the fantasy sexual concept of him in my head. This proved to be a viable solution as him and I had a nice chat and it suddenly brought out a different kind of energy between us. A part of me was hoping for him to say something arrogant or dismissive to make him look like a jerk for my own selfishness, but fortunately or unfortunately he was a very nice guy.

Australian hoplite was twenty eight and lives in Richmond which really shocked me as he looked very mature in the masculine sense. I had the impression that he was actually just blossoming into his very hot late thirties or forties. Knowing full well that he is so close to my age and already has an amazingly successful career and looks what he looks, I felt so inferior and so lost about my own life.

I remember thinking at that point that even if he was gay, he would be insanely out of my league. Like a mere mortal who looks to the moon. I mean let's get real here M. Why would he be with a guy like us? And even if he is with us, how naive can we be not to acknowledge that our own inner issues of insecurity and instability will start to wobble and eventually topple the entire dream?

After the chat, he was ready to leave for the showers. But before he left, he actually reached out his hand and ask for my name. Which felt refreshingly nice because firstly, I'm always the one asking hot guys' for their names. And secondly, because I told myself that I was going to put a firm non-negotiable leash on my stalking behaviour and not ask for his name. Yes, I do have those discussions with myself on the inside.

The shower cubicles at the gym are made out of frosted translucent barriers, enabling everyone to see at least forty percent of the skin-coloured contour and body shape of what goes on on the inside. While venturing into the showers, I was so tempted to take the cubicle next to his, but stopped myself firmly from committing anymore insanity. I walked down further through the hall to the other showers and made sure I left him alone.

Back outside the locker rooms when we were both changing at a distance from each other, I realised how much this encounter with the Australian hoplite reminded me of my run-in with the dream boy from Montréal four years ago. And just like that time, I knew that if I don't in some way do my part in getting his contact now as we cross paths, he will be forever lost in the ocean of people and life. I'm not saying that anything concrete between us is going to happen, or if the guy is even gay, but I still like the idea of being able to 'reach him'. 

This act was more for my peace of mind. It was to know that I did everything I could to keep him in my orbit than to walk away and regret later about the hot guy I once met. There is a wonderful saying once mentioned by my Asian friend which goes something like "Planning lies with man, the outcome with God or the heavens"  and I have come very much to live by that sentence everyday.

Considering my personal restriction of not wanting to ask him for his contact, I had to grow an even thicker face and courage to walk over to him to give him my name card instead. Yes, shamelessly, ruthlessly and daringly. The strategy was to put myself on the line with my chips, and I will leave it to you to make the connection and raise my move. If it doesn't happen, I will know that I've done my part and this connection just isn't meant to be.

Over the next two days, I could no longer contain my thoughts and revealed the entire story to two horrified female friends who although found my story very entertaining and comical, but yet didn't shy away from giggling hair-raisingly at my cringe-worthy actions. "Oh my God, M! I can't believe you did all that thing you said you did."

It was only then when I was working out some thoughts with them that I realised I have absentmindedly grown into a persistent guy who takes risk with people and don't mind being a fool for a couple of hours. I told them that in order to do what I do, one really has to grow some serious balls, be shameless, be unafraid of rejection and to be unafraid of embarrassing themselves.

For each time that you confront your feelings or chase after the possibility of an opportunity, you might have risked your ego, decency or the all important "self-respect" your mind tells you that you have for a short period, but in the long run, you actually gain much more in terms of expanding your own psychological freedom, courage and a higher vantage view of human life.