Confessions of a Former No-Earbuds-at-the-Gym Guy

So I gotta keep at it, maintain, be an inspiration for people. And as much as I love the gym, I’ve come to accept that certain annoying habits will never end. People who treat a bench as their desk. Guys who check their golf swing in the mirror. Guys who shave naked. (I don’t know what happens in the women’s locker room, but from what my wife says, it’s also kinda gross.)

My biggest issue? People who listen to music on their headphones. Is it that they sometimes subject everyone to their way-too-loud rendition of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”? Yes, but not entirely. It’s their cluelessness that other people exist and quite possibly have been trying to get their attention to see if, by chance, they’re done with the leg press—or do they have plans to marry it?

I lay the blame on the Walkman, the first real high-tech gadget of my youth. It looked cool and, unlike mini-fridge-size boom boxes, allowed you to strut around listening to cassettes without ruining your neck and shoulder. It also let you shut out the world. (No small thing if you were a teenager just trying to get from one end of the hallway to the other without being noticed.)

Aside from that, the machine is evil. It’s what started people having a personal playlist somewhere other than in their basement. Suddenly, everyone got the opportunity to decide: “Don’t like what I’m hearing. See ya.”

I guess that’s called freedom—a good thing, I suppose. Do I really want to force everyone on the gym floor to listen to “What About Love?” Well, yeah, I kinda do. Everyone could dance between sets, maybe use the squat rack to hold onto and express themselves more fully. Some would cringe (at both the song and possibly my sexy moves). But someone else might offer, “You know Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick sing backup?” And then another someone, who I’ve never talked with even though we’ve seen each other every day for three years, would say, “No way. Wait…hold on…okay, I can hear it. Wow. Just wow.”

The conversation would turn to judging every iteration of Jefferson Airplane or how Ann Wilson should be the permanent national anthem singer. Then someone would say, “Crazy for You.” No opinion or feeling. Just an awkward attempt to be part of the conversation. Others would stare because they’re adults and born after 1984. But inevitably, everything would lead to the only topic that matters at the gym: food. You’d learn who has the best coffee and the best cinnamon buns. (Never the same place.) Relationships would be formed. These would no longer be faceless people but people you could nod at as you walked by without stopping. The gym would become a pool of somewhat warmish water.

But the Walkman and its spawn took that away. It also led to the development of something even eviler, maybe the most sinister option in all of audio music: the shuffle button. Sure, I use it with my playlists to keep me guessing. I wonder which of the nine songs I picked will come on next? That sense of uncertainty creates such a good stress inside my well-developed chest. I feel so goddamn alive.

But the shuffle button lets us unilaterally play with time, history, and an artist’s vision—specifically, a musician’s. It’s not as though someone reorders book chapters or recuts a movie because they have a better sense of building an arc. But an album? Springsteen’s “Jungleland” may be the greatest closing track ever, but the next time I listen to Born to Run, I’m gonna allow an algorithm to maybe put it third. Who’s the effing Boss now?

So I don’t listen to music while I work out. I want to be present, and if I’m wearing earbuds, I’m in my own head, a place I’m already in enough. I wouldn’t get to have dumb conversations. More than that, I couldn’t listen in on dumb conversations, which really is the true benefit of working out in public.

It’s pretty simple. I’m not wearing earbuds, because I care about others. I’m about building relationships and making the world a little more kind, a little more loving. I put the first C into JCC.

Man, I’m awesome.

Or maybe not.

Maybe there’s something else.

There’s something else.

It’s my ears. I hate them, and they hate me. Earbuds refuse to stay put. Whenever I wear them, most of my time is spent pushing them back in, looking for some grip or angle that does not exist. It’s the same problem I have with a backpack slung onto one of my shoulders. It’s coming down in six seconds, and yes, I could use both straps, which is better for the back but doesn’t look as good (and yes, I work out my shoulders twice a week).

I don’t believe there’s any medical procedure to retrofit ear canals, and if there was, I’m sure it would be an elective, and I don’t have that kind of out-of-pocket cash. So that’s it. I’ll never be able to do curls to my JackedPumped3 playlist. The sooner I accept this, the sooner I can start living with this forever pain.

Or, you know, I could just buy the ones with hooks that go over the ears and make them never fall out. Thirty bucks. They arrived two days later.

Bringing music onto the gym floor was a different, more visible kind of statement: I’m here but not here. But then I had to try them, and even though I’m a physical marvel, I was, well, I’ll admit it, scared, scared I’d become antisocial and add to the isolation in the world. Truthfully, though, my bigger worry was that I’d like it.

And?

It was the second thing. I liked it a lot, and I don’t plan to go back to my old ways, because I get to listen to music, my music, the best music ever, for 30 glorious, uninterrupted minutes. That doesn’t happen anymore to a guy like me. I’ve worked from home for decades, so I’ve had zero commute for decades. My kids took over the radio a couple of years ago, and a seven-minute trip to CVS each week can only do so much to fill up my soul with rhythm.

The gym, that’s my new basement couch. I just wish I’d realized it sooner, but I was clinging to this idea of “being friendly” and “creating community.” Yeah, that does look pretty silly when the words are written out.

And it’s not like I’ve given up on talking to people. When I walk into the gym, I’ve got my eyes open, head up, and I’m wearing what I call a “warm scowl,” the official emoji of New England. (Well, it should be.) It’s the clearest way I can announce, “Please approach. I’m so goddamn friendly.”

But after I hit the padded floor, no more chittychat. It’s time to lift a massively average amount of weight, and for that to happen, I need something to give me the extra goose. And is anyone going to say anything better than the Who? No. More powerfully concise than Tom Petty? No. More inspirational than Springsteen? You know that answer.

Here’s one of my secrets: I need the music to restrain my worst impulses. Left on my own, I tend to wander. It took me 15 minutes to finish this paragraph when I could have done it in three, but I realized mid-word that I really needed to know who was in the cast of The Outsiders.

I also have a new problem. As much as I love my music, I need more, like a lot more. I immediately created 10 playlists, nine songs on each, with no problem. But while lifting a weight over and over and over and over has never been boring, hearing “Little Red Corvette” for the second time in 10 days was too much repetition for this man to take. I thought I could easily fix it, but instead, I was hit with a sad realization. Forty-five years of listening, and all I like is 99 songs? Eff me.

Then I remembered that I never put “What About Love?” anywhere. So I did, and I’m in triple digits, thank God. But wait, that just makes another problem. No one else will hear the song. There will be no dancing, no discussions about coffee and cinnamon buns, no togetherness.

Not if I don’t sing that mutha out loud and off-key.