To the man who shouted out to my friend and I while we were jogging,
Thank you for the encouragement, sir. We will keep running.
But if you will, imagine with me for a moment. It's a different mental muscle than the one you used to decide to roll down your window, stick your head out of a moving vehicle, and induce your vocal cords into motion, but I believe it's there. So imagine with me that you are a fighter. A boxer. In a ring.
Have the picture in your mind?
Fantastic.
Now I want you to imagine that this is the biggest fight of your life. You've been training for years, building up strength in your muscles, getting knocked down, getting back up again and again and again until bruises are second nature to your skin and the ache of your muscles is a good familiar friend. You're tough. You're ready. You know that you can win this thing.
All around you is a huge crowd. The fight's sold out and everyone's ready for a show. The attention doesn't bother you-- you've been waiting for this moment for your whole life and you're ready to show off. Your coach gives you a quick pep talk, full of confidence in you, your abilities, your determination, and your endurance. There's no doubt in his mind that you can do this. The bell dings and you step forward to circle around your opponent.
Are you there? Are you mentally in the ring, fists up, watching the other man for any indication of what move he might make, trying to decide if the first punch should be yours? Are your feet dancing, shuffling, jumping small jumps to keep your weight perfectly balanced? Are you there? Absorbed? Ready to see what you can do?
Imagine the first punch.
And the next.
And the next.
Imagine this fight. Plan out your moves. Duck, dodge, take a hit, land a hit, land another, back the other man into a corner. Pull back your arm for a clear punch to his jaw as he lets his guard down and then imagine a high obnoxious voice cutting through the crowd, "Oh yeah! Keep punching him!"
You turn your head, distracted. And then your opponent pummels your ass into the ground. You couldn't ever have done this. You couldn't even maintain focus for one round of the fight. One catcall (what's the male version of catcall? rooster-call?) and you're through. You weren't ready for this and everyone in this gigantic auditorium knows it. Thousands of people turned up to watch you choke. As you tumble headfirst toward the mat, your last thought before blackness is, "What a compliment that girl paid me!"
No? It's not?
You're not proud that someone noticed your body? You're not elated that someone deigned to give you attention because of your physique? You had bigger things on your mind? You wanted to accomplish something? You're not grateful that this cockcaller took the time to offer you encouragement as you took steps to improve your life?
Huh.
Imagine that.
There's a way to extend this, make it more applicable to what happened when you called out to me-- imagine this is not even a fight, just your first round of training, and someone in the gym tells you to keep punching as the flabby meat of your arm jiggles after every punch. You, sir, probably don't have any insecurities at all, but imagine having to workout in front of a wall-sized picture of Chris Hemsworth without his shirt on. Eventually, it's going to get into your head that there are some standards up to which you are never going to measure. And even if you do find your way to seeing that this workout is for yourself, that it doesn't matter that you can't meet that unrealistic expectation for your body, there's still going to be that person at the gym who's going to leer at you as you work out, at best a distraction that you're going to have to learn to tune out.
Listen, I'm not telling you how to live your life. I'm just offering you a narrative in which you can see why we don't plan on running along streets anymore.
Best wishes,
One of the Running Girls
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