Newsmessenger - What's in a Name? Just Call Me Bob

Just call me Bob. After all, everyone at the gym is thanks to my wife. I've had my share of folks calling me “Toby” or “Troy” or “Baldy,” in my day but Bob? More specifically my wife has not only been allowing a gym acquaintance to refer to her husband of 17 or 18 years (I’m a guy, it’s hard to keep track!) as Bob for the past couple of months, but she's been participating.

Thanks to having a handful of kids in the home, four at last count, my wife and I go to the gym at different times. We left the kids at home once and pumped a little iron together, we were armed with a cell phone. But after the 7th call from our 4 and 6-year-olds asking which of their older siblings was “the boss” we quickly learned that they weren't quite ready to be under older-sister rule. So I go early, and she goes after I come home.

This schedule has led to many conversations where we try to tell a story about somebody that we might have both seen at the gym. “You know the guy with the red hat, always wears the dirty socks?”

“Does he bring a yellow water bottle, stare at his calves in the mirror and sing 80's rock songs between sets?”

“No, this guy has a green water bottle, stares at his triceps and sings 90's show tunes.”

“Oh, I have no idea who you are talking about.”

But occasionally someone comes in during the end of my workout and stays until she arrives. We'll call one of these guys in particular “Steve.” Steve is a nice guy; he'll always greet you with a smile and a story. Don't get me wrong, Steve works out. You see, there are definitely different types of gym-goers. There are those who go to socialize and those who go to work out. Steve is a hybrid of sorts. He works out, but he can socialize with the best of them. A true socialize will spend more time standing beside a machine talking than they do in front of one exercising.

It's important not to mix a “social exerciser” with a “serious exerciser.” The serious exerciser is one who has a limited amount of time and needs to get in and get out. When confronted with a social exerciser the serious exerciser will often avoid eye contact, or, in some cases, gravitate toward machines far away from the social exerciser in order to avoid getting caught up in conversation that takes away from the workout.

I'm convinced that a very well laid out gym will have machines from all major muscle groups scattered about in every corner of the gym in order to accommodate those hoping to avoid the social exerciser. But back to the story. Steve is a nice guy. I barely see Steve, but my wife sees him regularly. One day Steve asked her if “Bob likes James Bond movies?” I asked her, “Who's Bob?” She said, “I think it's you!”

Now she'll often come home and tell me that she talked about what Bob and she did over the weekend. Bob's favorite restaurant, basketball team, etc. I asked her why she didn't clear the air, let Steve know I’m a Tony and not a Bob? She told me that she didn't want Steve to feel bad. Well what about Bob...I mean me? Here she is living this secret life, at the gym no less, with Bob.

So today I finally see Steve and he says, “Hello Bob!” I correct him and fill him in my wife's kindness. Steve seemed to be OK with the correction; he didn’t run screaming toward the steam room vowing to steam himself to death. Another friend within earshot says, “You know, you kind of look like a Bob.” The two of them have vowed to continue calling me Bob.

My wife arrived at the gym and immediately found herself the butt of everybody's joke. But the best part? Steve was filling in one of the other folks my wife and I both regularly see on the story. Steve says “Can you believe it, for the past few months I thought her husband's name was Bob!” The friend had a chuckle, looked over at my wife and said in all sincerity, “I'll be Phil had a good laugh at that one.”