Gymnsia

Part 3 - `I can't believe we played chicken on the dance floor'

by Michael Joseph Gross

It's practically impossible to remain anonymous at the Metropolitan Fitness Center, on Columbus Avenue. One doesn't simply enter the Met, as it's affectionately referred to by its members; in the grand tradition of Gloria Swanson, one makes an entrance.

At the Metropolitan, members descend an open staircase in full view of the crowded plane of cardio and Nautilus equipment, ending at the check-in desk, a freestanding island in the center of the room that also sells protein drinks and fresh fruit, and is usually surrounded by men perusing the current issues of a half-dozen fitness magazines. The visibility of this entrance, and the sociability of the front desk, make it possible for patrons to keep close tabs on who's coming and going. On the one hand, this lends credibility to the Met's exaggerated reputation as a cruising spot for gay men from the South End; on the other, it simply encourages members to get to know one another.

And they are a fairly tight bunch. During the half hour I spent on the Stairmaster one night, the man exercising on the machine to my left had three full conversations with other patrons, and the man to my right had two. They talked about subjects ranging from stock tips to relationship difficulties, but in each exchange the primary subject was the principals' nightclub adventures of the previous weekend.

"You were so messed up at Buzz," one man said to the Stairmaster-er on my right. (Buzz, for the uninitiated, is a gay nightclub whose main drawing card is a dance floor packed with shirtless men with perfect pecs.) "Yeah," he panted, "I can't believe we played chicken on the dance floor."

The Met's typical customer is a man who is -- or aspires to be -- shirtless at Buzz, so the layout of the gym isn't shy about indulging vanity. It is the most elaborately mirrored of Boston's gyms; even the gang shower in the men's locker room has a full-length looking glass, the better to appreciate your manhood (or your neighbor's) after a long, hard workout.

Yet members of the Met don't go there just to cruise and narcissify. After I had visited almost a dozen gyms whose clientele shares little more than a tax bracket, it was refreshing to find, at the Metro-politan, a place whose members seemed to have real relationships with one another -- even if that meant I had to wait 10 minutes for Dick and Harry to finish figuring out who to invite for drinks on Thursday before I could use the pec deck. At one yuppie gym on Beacon Hill, by contrast, I worked out for an hour and heard nary a word of witty banter. (This social isolation is perhaps related to the members' preoccupation with bacteria -- nearly everyone in that gym totes a squirt bottle of disinfectant to prevent the insidious mingling of sweat on vinyl.)

Back to part 2 - On to part 4

Michael Joseph Gross is a freelance writer living in Boston. He can be reached at MJG25@aol.com.