I had an incident ("incident" is way too strong of a word) this morning at the gym. I had to do seated dumbbell presses and there's a particular type of seat that I like to use, and those are aligned down a row, alternating with another type of seat that doesn't have a back so you gotta lie down on those. Every other one. It's like a urinal situation where you want to spread out as much as possible but every once in a while, depending on which ones are already occupied, you gotta pee right next to a stranger. The every-other nature of the seats I needed complicates things, e.g. this morning at approximately 5:20 AM I need to pick a seat and the only one with a back that's left is in between two lie-down benches that are already occupied. To make matters worse, the 60-something-year-old woman I've been mildly crushing on at the gym was on the bench next to it, but she had her weights spread out next to the bench so that it might appear, to any dumb hairy moron approaching, that she was using both the bench and the seat that I was walking toward. So when I got there I asked her, ya know, "are you using this?" and she hesitated before saying no, and the hesitation plus the fact that she didn't look very happy made me think that she might just be being polite, that she really was using it but I was already sitting and being vaguely annoyed is no reason to pick a fight with someone but nevertheless still vaguely annoyed, I could tell, so I asked again, "are you sure?" to which she replied, "no, I'm over here." My muscles are pretty tiny so it wasn't like I was using the chair for that long, just 3x12x20lb, takes like five minutes, but I was self-conscious the whole time, like I was breaking gym etiquette, like I was somewhere where I wasn't supposed to be.
I am a cis-het white male and that comes with privilege. I was raised in a society that is founded on white supremacy and patriarchy and rape culture. This cute sexagenarian had no reason to be comfortable around me. She doesn't know me, so she probably shouldn't be comfortable around me, as a rule. Which is fucked up. I acknowledge this. I acknowledge the world we live in. I know that no one owes me anything, and the fact that people exactly like me have shaped the world by thinking that everyone owes them everything, which is why we as a society and culture are absolutely fucked in the way that we currently are.
I know all this. I have surrounded myself with strong women and progressive friends for a long time now, and have willingly engaged in the general conversation about how we're fucked up and why, through my career and education as a social worker, through my social life, through the media I consume, it's all contributed to pulling the wool from my eyes, so that I can see clearly. I also know what I look like, large and tall and hairy and growing more muscles every goddamn day. So I know, based on all this, why my gym compadre acted the way she did in that situation. I begrudge her nothing.
But the cost of knowing is that I am uncomfortable too. I am occasionally uncomfortable being in spaces with people who are not cisgender or heterosexual or white or male, because I know what my presence means. It means danger, historically. This particular person, as well as the vast majority of people on this planet earth, do not know me at all, know nothing about me, and so the only evidence they have is what I look like, and that snap judgment causes discomfort in many situations for the other party. Knowing that, I mirror the discomfort. The incident at the gym was extremely minor but it's been weighing on me all day. I feel uneasy about it. I wish I would've just skipped seated dumbbell presses. I probably will next time, if there's only one seat left and it's anywhere near anyone besides the bald bulging retired cops and firemen that make up the rest of the gym's 5 AM clientele.
(I could try to tie this thematically to the picture of this random side street in Center City that I took as I walked back from the pharmacy for the third time this week holding medications that I've never heard of and aren't for me, but I won't insult your intelligence.)
The place I'm going tonight, which will not be mentioned here in this space on the blog but you might be able to piece it together through context clues, is actually helpful in this way. Not that I deserve to feel good or comfortable anywhere, but I am actually really comfortable in this unnamed space. It's one of those rare places where I know I belong, and will be made to feel like I belong. I'm not owed this, and I didn't earn it, but it feels nice anyway, to be comfortable in a space, because other people are comfortable with your presence. If that makes sense.
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