The gym is funny, isn’t it?
It’s one of those places that would be hard to explain to a crowd of aliens if they were to land here.
“Well, you see…” we will say, “we used to run around outside and lift rocks and shit, but we can’t do that anymore, so we run on the spot on this machine and lift this metal thing again and again.”
“Why would you do that?” the lead alien will ask.
“Because we want to look good. So other humans will want to have sex with us…”
At this point, the aliens will turn to see a sweaty red man who’s in mid-squat with all his veins popping out of his skin like worms.
I did a gym phase – once.
At the time, my Instagram feed was hijacked by girls with high-swinging ponytails and toned mid-drifts. I thought, well, I want to be a high-swinging-ponytail-girl-with-a-tight-mid drift.
And so I was in my new matching activewear, lifting things and running like a crazed hamster on a treadmill. I did this for a while but never reached the heights of the Instagram girls, so I gave up on the dream and assumed it was because “I wasn’t a competitive person.”
Being competitive is often associated with sports and board games, but I was never bothered about winning. Coming first place in the 200-meter race on Sports Day seemed like a nice idea, but it was not worth pressing my lungs to make it a reality.
And the same goes for board games. Again, it’s a nice feeling to win, but I won’t lose my dignity over it. You can have all the properties on the board, but if you were an arsehole getting them, are you really a winner?
Now I thought writing wasn’t a competitive sport, but as the MA got started, it became very apparent that there are plenty of ways you can compete –
Did you see the way she structured that sentence?
Did you hear the way he described that tree?
Did you know she came third place in the Mogford writing contest?
In the arts, you always hear, ‘Don’t look at anyone else; you’re on your own journey.’ There is truth to that, but you can see who’s in front, and it’s only natural to want to overtake them. If your friend wins a writing contest but you don’t get shortlisted – that’s going to hurt.
It’s when someone in your class is getting a round of applause for a paragraph they’ve written that you begin to see how people become arseholes during Monopoly.
So perhaps I am competitive, and actually everyone is; the trick is to find out what you want to win at.
THE QUACK 