Makeup at the gym

Maybe it’s just me, but the weirdest thing about wearing makeup to the gym - which I see more often than you would think - is that the gym is a place where the expectation is that you need not look your best self.

Yes, I understand that some people want to put their best foot forward at all times, and especially when you’re meeting new people, but your best foot forward is different depending upon the situation.

You’re at the gym. Lifting weights. Running. Jumping. If you’re doing it right, you’re supposed to be sweating and red-faced. You’re supposed to be wearing your old college tee shirt and a pair of sweat pants. You’re not supposed to be looking fresh-faced. Your lashes need not be extended to their full length. Your blush should be natural. Not artificially applied.

Makeup in this situation seems weird to me. Also, if I notice your makeup, you must be wearing a lot of it, because I don’t notice anything.

Admittedly, I also think that most makeup is a terrible waste of time and not terribly attractive, so perhaps my predispositions are playing a role here, but I don’t think so. If everyone around you isn’t concerned about their eye line or the color of their lips, why paint your face?

More importantly, why so obviously paint your face?

Perhaps my real predisposition is this:

I think that one of the most attractive qualities in a person is confidence. It’s one of the things that I first noticed about Elysha and continue to love to this day. She routinely places herself well outside her comfort zone and is constantly expands her boundaries. She went from never wanting to stand on a stage to becoming a host and emcee so talented that other emcees have asked her for advice. She went from never playing the ukulele or singing in public two years ago to someone who has done so a handful of times, on both the east and west coast. She enters every social situation with confidence and grace. Turns strangers into friends at the drop of a dime.

She’s also a person who will roll out of bed, brush her teeth, don a baseball cap, and head off to brunch.

That, in my mind, is beautiful. Confident and beautiful.

Applying makeup for your Saturday morning spin class does not strike me as terribly confident.

Of course, I don’t know if any of this is true. These makeup-clad exercisers might be incredibly confident people. Perhaps more confident than me. They might be wearing makeup - and a lot of it for me to notice - for reasons I can’t begin to imagine. I’m looking out across the gym from high atop my elliptical machine, passing judgement and making enormous assumptions about people I don’t know at all.

Maybe that pink eye shadow and peach lipstick have nothing to do with the person’s self confidence. Maybe that person who appears camera-ready for the role of backup dancer in a Taylor Swift video has an excellent reason to look this way.

Hey, maybe it takes an enormous amount of confident to wear that much makeup in a place where almost everyone around you is not. Right?

I’m also not being very nice. I’m most definitely violating my policy to never speak about another person’s physical appearance.

So perhaps I should just return my gaze to the screen affixed to my elliptical machine and watch the rebroadcast of last night’s Bruins game.

Stay out the kind of trouble that something like this will probably get me into.