My naked problem in Stuff

This is another awkward thing to write about, which seems to be mostly what I come here to write about. And maybe that’s exactly what this place is for. If it were all simple easy things I wouldn’t feel the need to write them down.

I went to Megan’s gym last night and worked out with her. It’s my gym too, I guess, but I think of it as Megan’s gym because she’s the reason I go there, and the reason I stopped going to the other gym that I enjoyed for more than 10 years. The gym is really nice, though, and I’m not complaining at all. I go there three times per week and usually only work out with her one of those times. The other two times either I don’t see her at all or I see her but she’s working with other people.

On the one time per week that our schedules coincide, we enjoy a good workout together and she always pushes me harder than I would if I was alone. But we also spend the entire evening together, which means heading back to the lockers at the end of the workout, showering and dressing, and then heading home in different cars but together. I feel like this routine, over the course of the couple months that we’ve been doing it, has resulted in me getting naked and showering with a friend in a way that I would never have thought I would have a habit of doing. I never do anything like that with any other friends in my life.

Then last night she asked me if I wanted a massage after the workout. She makes that offer every week and I accept maybe half of the time. I feel guilty getting weekly free massages from her, which is really the only reason I don’t accept every time. She’s not just a friend giving a massage, but she’s a certified professional masseuse and she really does an amazing job. The kind of massage I would pay $150 for at a spa.

But here’s the thing: I go to her house and we go into one of her bedrooms where she has a massage table set up, and I take off all my clothes and lay down. She doesn’t offer me any privacy and I don’t ask for it. It really wouldn’t make sense for me to expect it considering only a half hour earlier we were showering together at the gym. But there’s something about the whole thing that feels really weird to me.

Put succinctly, she and I are naked together a little bit more often than I consider normal.

And I don’t know what to do about it. I want to keep working out with her. I want to keep taking her up on the offers for massages. And if I were to say something like, “I think I’ll use of the private stalls in the locker room tonight,” or, “Do you mind stepping out while I undress?” It would be really weird after all the times that I haven’t said that. I feel like too much of a precedent has been set.

And, I should point out, I’m the one making it weird. At no point does she ever do or say anything about this to make it uncomfortable. It’s abundantly clear that she has no problem with it. And that’s not to say she enjoys it or encourages it, but instead that she finds it so commonplace that it most likely doesn’t even register with her.

So I guess it will just go on, status quo.