Watson Fitness Center has an unsettling effect on me.
My perspective on the gym is, granted, a little different; I usually conduct my exercise mat naps and two-pound weight bicep curls at Farley Field House, so taking these rituals to foreign territory makes me a little uncertain of myself.
And maybe it is just this change of scenery that puts me on my guard, but every time I walk into Watson, the air feels ripe with judgment and self-consciousness.
"Crud, that's that kid in my math class whose name I don't know," I think, averting my eyes from the treadmill to the weight machines. But there, toning his quads, is my English professor. "I'm 200 pages behind on the reading he assigned," I think, ducking behind the elliptical.
Working out in the gym at home was comfortably anonymous for me. Certainly, I would have an occasional awkward run-in with one of my friends' parents, or an old high school girlfriend who I've seen recently via Facebook has transferred and/or started dating women. A couple awkward "what's new?" conversations, but nothing too painful.
All in all, I have a sense of security at the recreation center at home that I simply can't seem to find at Watson.
Making the trek over to Farley every afternoon has rendered exercise a totally separate sphere of existence for me. Far away from dorms, the unions, classrooms, and other social or academic realms, Farley has become the place where it is okay to wear tight spandex and to put a bag of ice in your shorts if that's what you need to do. Where my teammates are used to seeing my rippling biceps and understand that my naps on the infield are, in fact, valuable contributions to the track team's success.
But at the gym, my self-image becomes more vulnerable. I don't think it's a campus secret that the number of Bowdoin students who work out on a regular basis are starting to outgrow the number of machines available at Watson. Thus, anytime I'm in there, I feel like I need to justify my presence. Or at least make the appearance of being justified.
Am I sweating enough? Too much? Can the girl on the arc trainer next to me see that my "resistance" is respectably high? There is a constant sense of being watched; I flip my iPod facedown so no one in proximity can see the Nickelback playing (though I refuse to admit there's anything wrong with that).
Usually, though, at around the 20 to 25 minute mark, someone breaks the vigilant silence: "How much longer do you have on there?"
My paranoia intensifies; I can see the person wandering around the gym, taking sips of water, eying me, stretching absentmindedly, looking at me again, watching, waiting the eight minutes for me to remove myself.
I scurry off the machine, try and yank out one of the new-fangled "gym wipes" from its dispenser, always managing to pull a three foot rope of antibacterial wipe from the dispenser. The person on deck for my machine closes in, perhaps seeing other prospective exercisers moving in as well (since no one seems to really use the dry erase board).
A few times at Watson, I've witnessed an anomaly?a total abashment, in fact?of gym etiquette and culture.
Someone will wander in at 3:45, dressed in their normal jeans and daywear, knowing full well that the mad rush for machines is about to commence, and plop their iPod, backpack, jacket, and other belongings onto the handles of a machine. Then they leave for 10 minutes. Then they come back, dressed in workout gear, equipped with a newly purchased water bottle from the C-Store.
I'm sorry, but you are not allowed to stake out an elliptical that way. If this keeps up, soon people will start urinating on treadmills to mark it as theirs.
No, no: You rush to the bathroom, change as quickly as you can, sign in, and hope for a free space like the rest of us. Watson is a Darwinian system?you snooze, you don't exercise. You don't bury the machines in your stuff, then snooze, then buy a power bar, and then exercise.
Maybe this is what bothers me the most about the gym: The cramped, dog-eat-dog environment where you're in constant competition for equipment with friends, classmates, professors, and faculty members. With the expansion of the workout facilities supposedly in planning, now, maybe some of this tension will be eased.
For now, though, make note that the napping girl on the mats is next in line for the treadmill.