Rugged Good Looks

I lift in a gym across the street.

In my experience, this is a pretty ordinary place by Euro gym standards - carpeted floors, archaic machines with no instructions and a mini treadmill circa 1993. Seriously, most of the treadmills I've run across (pun not even intended I swear) in Europe are like, half the length of a normal treadmill. If the threat of faceplanting off the end of one of those things doesn't make you keep those knees up, I don't know what will.

What I've come to realize is not so normal of late are some of the individuals frequenting this gym. First off, I've noticed a strange affinity by many of the gym's users for working out barefoot or just in socks.
Like, I would estimate at least 50% of the dudes in there are shoeless.
Maybe there's a reason for this, but I don't know/can't figure out what it is and it violates what was always ingrained in me to be the first rule of the weight room - keep your kicks tied because one day you will drop something on your toe.
And it will be heavy.
This was impressed on me repeatedly from my first days in the "Wellness Center" at Salisbury Composite High School and though I doubt many of us stopped to think that a thin layer of whatever they make shoes out of these days would offer all that much protection, it just seems to make sense.
So there's that.

Then there's a character I see there each time I workout who I like to call Arnold. Arnold is in his early 20s and seems to think quite highly of himself. But hey, that isn't all that out of the ordinary in the gym you say.
True, and while I have seen guys check themselves out repeatedly in the mirror while doing the 3845th set of bicep curls, I have to say I have never seen a show quite like this boy put on last Wednesday.

I'm minding my own business trying not to be talked to since then the cat would be out of the bag that I neither speak nor understand Hungarian... and for some reason keeping this a secret for as long as possible is important to me in this environment. Probably because I don't want to be constantly suspicious that people are talking crap about me when they are standing right beside me.
I know it sounds incredibly vain and self-absorbed to think people are talking about me at all times, but any of you who have lived/visited places where people know you're a dumb foreigner understand the fear, however irrational. People take advantage of stupidity, I'm telling you.

Anyway, I'm minding my own business when to my horror/great amusement I look up to see Arnold has pulled his shirt off over his head and is in the process of flexing his pecs, Mr. Universe-style in the mirror in front of him. The strangest part, besides the fact this went on for a good 10 minutes, was that nobody else even batted so much as an eyelash that this might be slightly out of the ordinary. Nobody looked over, nobody even acknowledged anything was taking place. I was shocked and hard pressed not to drop my dumbbells on the barefoot kid beside me.
What? In what country is this a normal thing to do? Evidently I answer my own question. I also neglect to mention that last week he and the crew were lifting up their shirts to compare abs... so I don't know why I'm surprised.

No I don't know this cat. And no he isn't Arnold.
But I have no doubt he would've been taking advantage had a camera been present.

My favourite part was that after this spectacle ended I get back to my workout, shaking my head all the while, only to look up again about 10 minutes later and discover Arnold has once again taken off his shirt. This time however, a small crowd of 7 or so homies had gathered - all of whom were admiring his chiselled musculature. Extensive leg flexing was also part of this second routine.

This would have been merely hilarious to me, except for the fact that I regularly get stared at in that place on the regular like I have a third arm or something. That day, I was wearing a particularly extravagant and ridiculous outfit consisting of a black shirt and black pants. You know how people sometimes say they have a particular song they would choose to act as their theme song on the soundtrack of their life? No contest, the period of my life lived in Europe would be set to circus music.

Speaking of staring, I'm not about to start a trend of complaining about things that I don't understand about other cultures, but I'll indulge myself once. Now.
One illustration will suffice: one day a few summers ago while on the metro in the middle of the city in France, I'm on my way to the park to go for a run. I'm being stared at profusely as usual, presumably because I'm wearing a clown suit in the form of running shorts and a t-shirt. This goes on for a number of minutes, before a man gets on carrying 2 huge long pool noodles. This, of course, is not out of the ordinary for anyone on the metro and Noodle Man proceeds to stare at me intently for the remainder of my trip... as if he has just watched me stomp on the toes of the granny standing beside me. As I exited the train I wanted to just grab one of the pool noodles and make a run for it. I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO STARE AT!!!!!