July 2011

I’m doing it.

You’re doing it.

In fact pretty much everyone I know is doing it, but have you ever asked yourself why?

I’m talking about the gym, or swimming, or running, or just general exercise.

Gay men caught the exercise bug in higher proportion than that other bug that defined us for so long. To say there is a direct correlation between HIV/AIDS and the body beautiful would be as obvious as saying that Pam St Clement wears cheap earrings.

As the eyes of the world turned on us waiting to see us all get sick and die, we became obsessed with looking as fit and healthy as could be.

It’s a trend that hasn’t abated, even with the advent of improved health and our life span being the same as anyone else’s.

Now I don’t think it’s a bad thing but I do question at times why I feel the need to conform.

I know why I started because when I turned 30 I proceeded to put on two stone. My flatmate at the time was a fashion stylist and kept giving me new clothes but didn’t notice that they were coming in larger sizes. And our bathroom didn’t have an extractor fan so every time I pulled back the shower curtain the mirror was steamed up and I truly didn’t notice how much larger I was. Then came the day in June when it was finally warm enough to open the window in the bathroom and when I pulled back the shower curtain there in the clear piece of shiny glass in front of me was an image of my dad.

Now to understand how scary this was you need to know a little about my dad! He was 5ft 5in and 18stone. Or 165cm and 114 kilos!

I joined the gym that day. I think I had always found a perverse pleasure in not being a gym bunny, but that day all I wanted was not to turn into my dad.

But then a few weeks later I began to see changes. Addiction was complete. Then of course I began to notice other guys and how good they looked, so I began to work that little bit harder. And I remembered all the times I had expressed an interest in someone in good shape and been rejected and decided that I was going to show them all.

Yet my fear of not comparing well to the guys I was interested in became more intense rather than less. So I upped my game and worked harder. I basically put my social life on hold so I could exercise more, so that when I went out next I would impress the people I was beginning to loathe.

But it’s like chasing the Holy Grail. You believe it exists yet you can never find the ultimate body shape.

Then of course there is the fact that your standards are raised higher than before and like all the others you begin to look down on those who are in worse shape than you. So you are stuck between what you were and what you want to be and unable to settle for whom you are. And I still wasn’t getting a shag. Even when someone pays you a compliment you don’t believe them, and even when someone I fancied like mad for a long time showed an interest, I’d ask myself, 'what on earth does he see in me?'

When I look back over the last 12 years there hasn’t been a week when I have exercised less than three times! And there hasn’t been a week when I have looked at myself in the mirror and felt depressed at how FAT I am. I’m not by the way, but in my head I am the chubby kid at school who never got picked for a team.

There is a HUGE part of me that looks forward to the day I stop caring and I can eat pasta and butter and crisps and cake and get fat, run away to Italy and open a retreat for ex muscle boys were we will get fat in seclusion and be happy about it! A kind of Mediterranean XXL, but with less Kylie and no vogueing with tops off!

But in the meantime I wear my addiction if not with pride, but with a very low v-neck from American Apparel.

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