Hey there, gym guy with Texas-sized shoulders and a pitbull-esque neck. Yeah, it makes sense to work at a gym if you want your career to be to maintain a body mass the size of Jupiter. Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to lose 5-10 pounds in my face because I have headshots coming up and I’m trying to avoid landing the role of “Swollen Wisdom Toothed Chipmunk” unless it pays scale. I really don’t have that much to say to you. I don’t “relate” to your truck bench pressing lifestyle.

I understand that you’re practicing good customer service, but I will fail you in any conversation you attempt to have with me. If you ask me how I am, you’ll get a guaranteed generic “Fine.” That’s better than asking, “What’s going on?” I don’t have an answer for the latter. I’ll respond with a “Not much,” with the subtext of “Why do you want to know?”

He says something to the effect of, “Well, at least you get to to work out now,” because (bless his beefy heart) he has no idea that a good majority of the population hate working out.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to come up with the right answer that acknowledges his enthusiasm but conveys the sentiment “I don’t want thick-neck.”

“I just do what I gotta do.” Necessity, brother. Necessity and a normal, irrational womanly hatred for her own body.

It’s okay. We don’t have to talk. I am fine using your over-priced gym. I’m battling sub-par metabolism and the propensity to down large quantities of delicious snobby person’s beer brewed in a fabergé egg. I understand that we will come in contact with one another, but in no means do we have to have more of a “Hello/Hello” relationship.

I just don’t understand your world. Your world of protein drinks and avocado snacks. I’m an emotional one-way-or-the-other type of gal and there’s no room for “the good kind of fat” shades of gray. I don’t understand your contradictory apparel of sweats and spandex. It’s no fault of your own, but I will flub our interactions because jocks aren’t supposed to talk to nerds unless my head is being swirled in a toilet bowl.

The only way we will find common ground is if you let me attach a saddle to your back and you let me ride you like the dragon in “Never Ending Story.” I will feed you plenty of carrots and brush your fur and we will have the greatest of adventures. We will be a team. We will conquer the clouds, Gym Guy. Your name will no longer be Gym Guy. I shall call you Elkaron the Friendly Man-Dragon. As you spew fire from your nose and mouth I will cling to your neck for safety. We will battle unicorns and swoop through the air as adrenaline and wind rush through me. At the end of our day, I will award you with a satchel of magic beans and we will finally speak the same language.