I’m just here at work. Just doing my thing. Minding my own business. I bring a chart back up to the front desk after I’m done with it, and, as is typical, struggle to place it into the rack without the pages getting crumpled. BRB motor coordination of a psuedopod amoeba.

Chick sees me not succeeding and takes the chart for me. “You know,” she says, “it’s already in order so you COULD just scan it. If you wanted.”

“That’s fine.”

So I bring another chart back up the front. I’m about to place it in the rack again but remember, oh yeah these are already in order, I guess I’ll just scan them. So I start doing that, and the other front desk girl says –

“You’re going to make him feel bad, he’s sensitive. He’s so nice.”

Girl 1 (looking at me with an eye brow raised): “Are you sensitive, Brent?”

Brent (desperately trying to stop what’s about to happen): “I wouldn’t say that.”

Girl 2: “Whatever! You know you’re nice.”

Girl 1 (after chuckling): “Brent’s a nice guy.”

I wasn’t even trying to flirt with these girls. Their assessment is automatic. They can smell it on me. I wear my vulnerability like a name tag. Hi My Name Is: Brent. I Am: Sensitive, Beta, And A Virgin. If you need me, I’ll be the guy sitting in the dark at his computer, typing in his blog. Resigned to his fucking fate.

Friday I did clean pulls and reverse hypers. Saturday I did weighted chins, +85lbs x 3, then 3×5 barbell rows, then some barbell curls and lateral delt raises. I felt moderately pumped. I’ve had better.

Chris and Mike did a meet at Authentic Strength on Saturday as well. They took conservative attempts but still made multiple PRs. Mike avenged a PR squat that was red-lighted at Raw Nationals as well as everything else for bench, DL, and total PRs. Chris PRed his bench, dead, and total for sure – I want to say he PRed his squat on the 2nd attempt too but am not sure. They did great though, I’m happy for and proud of them. I would try to narrate the interaction between us but it’s not going to fucking make sense to anyone but us, Justin, and AC so I won’t bother.

I met some other peeps too. Met a guy named Marcus from the CF gym I used to train at who did pretty great for his first meet, my favorite lift by him was an aggressive third attempt deadlift that he got real fucking pumped for. He let me and in fact ENCOURAGED me to slap his traps which was lol, I got a lot out of that.

I met Melody, who reads this blog. Hi Melody.

Cristina and the other folks with Just Lift also lifted at a meet this past Saturday. I spent most of my Friday night texting her friend Andrew about what he was wearing, training, and high-bar vs. low-bar squats while they drove. To reiterate that – I spent most of my Friday night texting a fucking guy. It’s fine. Hi Andrew. How is your day? Let me know how your training goes tonight.

freak writes:

I hope you never get a girlfriend just so I can continue reading posts like this.

DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THAT’S SOMETHING YOU NEED TO FUCKING WORRY ABOUT PAL.

Alex writes:

Mixed sex friendships don’t work. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lh5fR4DMA]
I’ve known many guys like this in the past and it was never the case that the girl wanted to sleep with them. She enjoys the control and the fact that you do want to sleep with her and knowing that you’ll always be there and listen to her bullshit because of it.
I view it more as she doesn’t give a fuck what your opinion of her is and so she’ll tell you anything. The people who’s opinion she does care about (her boyfriend) she won’t tell for fear of it going down.

I could have cried less over this, thanks though.

criedthefox writes:

I am 26 years old, unemployed, and live with my parents. I’m one head of hair away from being George Costanza (not sure if Asians watch Seinfeld). I’m of course single…and I’m pursuing an undergraduate degree in which i’m surrounded by FUCKING 18-21 year old SMOKE SHOWS all day. I got up the nerve to befriend ONE of these smoke shows, only to have her lead me on, invite me out with her friends and then say “oh that guy over there is this guy i’ve kind of been hanging with lately” to which 10 minutes later she started making out with him 6 inches from my fucking stance. I’ve been “that friend” to every girl I’ve ever known. One girl even told me once “i can’t date you because I’d want to marry you and we can’t get married because we don’t believe in the same God”. FUCK dude. I get you. I should probably be killing myself.

I got a couple stories like that. Don’t take it personal. Keep love in your heart. It gets better. You get stronger. Then you start a blog and a surprising number of people will read and enjoy it. It won’t take away the loneliness but you will feel a little better.

See the following: Jon North on bodybuilding.com.

See also: this thread.