Well, don’t we all remember having a crush on someone during our teenage? – a senior, a classmate, a junior, a teacher, a friend of our sibling, even an uncle or aunt or maybe anyone else still. How beautiful that feeling is, Do I really need to explain? That admiration, that racing of heart in their vicinity, secretly noticing them, and, and, umm… yes, stalking them, dreaming about them, YES, and those dreams are freaking beautiful, right? Waking up after having a nice dream about your crush fills you with joy, you just feel great. And what not...

But these are all childhood things, right? That pristine admiration for someone, a person you find to be perfect and most attractive in the world. That is partly because this is the time when we are discovering so many new things about our body and mind and desires and what not. But these things stop after certain age, don’t they? I mean, then you’ve had relationships and you start to know people as well as yourself better and begin to understand what our body is trying to do and we start to get more and more practical and we fall in love and have the most amazing time with our loved ones where we spend days and weeks together without even realizing the fast flow of time. But this is different than crush, is it not. 

I, 27 years old male, was also living the same practical life where I was happy and satisfied and was leading a comfortable life in Mumbai, India. I work for a giant PSU and earn a decent salary to be able to fulfill all my basic desires. As any other working individual, my routine has been similar, waking up around 06:45, reaching office by 8:15, working until 5:00 and going to gym at 6 or 7 pm, getting back home by 8 or 9, watching TV, reading something, talking to family and friends, working on my hobbies, dinner, whatever mind wants, and go to sleep. I have had some beautiful moments and people in my life and I’m really thankful to have experienced those, as they help me stay satisfied and content with my life.

Let me tell you more about the gym that I go to, well, it’s not a conventional gym as we all have been to or seen on TV or internet. Here multiple activities are carried out, various workouts like boxing, HIIT, dance, yoga, muscle building sessions, etc. and these all activities have one thing in common, they are all group workouts. I mean there are grids with station numbers marked on the floor and everyone is allotted one station and everyone does the same exercise based on their capacity as guided by the trainer.

And as the title suggests, it happened there, the other day I saw a girl working out at a corner station far away from me, she was wearing a purple half sleeve t-shirt and had a round small tattoo at the back of her neck which was partly hidden by her t-shirt. This was the first time I noticed her, she was nice looking, was calm, dedicated to workout, was not trying to impress anyone, was just absolutely present there following the commands of the trainer. And then the session ended and we all went home and when I came back the next day, she was again attending the same session at the same station and this time she was wearing a black top, as far as I can remember. I noticed her again and she was all serious and focused and dedicated to the workout and following the commands and pushing herself to the limit and I started feeling inspired a little by her, by her dedication. While other people were too busy looking here and there and socializing and taking pictures for their Instagram and trying to look cool, she was just there trying to focus on the workout and giving her whole heart and mind and body to it. Still all serious, no expression on her face other than that pushing her limits face. She had a face which makes her look intelligent and sharp but not arrogant or rude. I’m sure she must be soft with her words but those words would be filled with confidence and research and analysis and humility. She looked to have deep thoughts and liked what she did or was doing and got immersed in it.

That’s when it started, after going to the same gym for more than 6 months, which I love by the way, I started coming to the gym with the anticipation of being able to see her. I didn’t realize that in just 2 or 3 classes together, I had really started to admire her. It started becoming difficult for me to not look at her every once in a while. Then after 3-4 more common workout sessions and a week later, I saw her smile for the very first time, the trainer made some joke and everyone laughed - a very common thing at our gym, and I saw her smile from the side and I still can’t forget it. Well, it was a normal smile as far as the smile beauty norms go, but for me, it was really beautiful, for many next moments I kept thinking about her smile, I am still doing it right now, it is all very clear in my memory, and I then realized that Oh my God! I have a crush on her. I mean I wanted to know about her, I wanted to talk to her, I wanted to know her views about anything and everything in the world, I wanted to see the world through her perspective, I wanted to know about her favorite movies and music and stories and poems and discuss them. She was an introvert for sure and I know introverts and I know how difficult it is for them to talk to anyone new but I also know for a fact that when introverts start to trust you, when they finally open up with you, they cannot stop talking, and that is a beautiful and special feeling. I wished this to happen because I knew that whatever she will say will not be to impress anyone or boast herself but will be her original and her deepest and uncorrupted thoughts and beliefs and perspectives.

And the admiration and longing kept increasing with each day passing, I never saw her talk to anyone other than once or twice with the trainer about the workout. She looked really cute at times when she came for 6 pm sessions and yawned occasionally before the start of the session and looked like she came here after a nap. I always came to gym with an office colleague and a really good friend. This is the time when I told him about all the things (partly) that I am feeling and he pulled my leg at times and said jokes but understood the feeling. I still didn’t know her name and I was sure she must not be on social media, well, I had also left using social media as a regular thing a long time ago. Even with that, I had no chance to find her profile anywhere because I didn’t know her name yet. By this time, I was getting the feeling of trying to talk to her because so much was going on in my mind and I wanted to know her so much. I started having imaginary conversations in my mind about how I am going to tell her how I feel and how pure my intentions are and will she be patient enough to hear all of it and the most important thing is that I didn’t want to make this wonderful gym, a place which she treats like a temple for her body, get a place where she has to be careful and not be free and feel noticed and get cautious and stuff like that, all imaginary.

I talked about this with a great friend of mine who has been admired by many people in the past and asked her about how she will feel. I had to, I mean I was losing sleep in the night, my morning pages (I used to write 3 pages every morning about my thoughts, my crudest thoughts without any censor of filter. I just kept on writing whatever came to my mind in whatever manner) were filled with her. In fact, several of my morning pages were, day after day, it reached to a level of week after week. This is when I knew I had to do something about it and you normally don’t find people whom you admire to this extent and took the help of this friend to understand a girl’s thought about it and will it make her coming to the gym difficult and stuff.

Well, a great thing is that this cute and wise and graceful friend admires me too a little and told me to just go for it, just tell her what I feel, just figure a way out to this because this had to be done. It will be a sin to not pursue such a beautiful feeling.

It’s hard to tell how frequently I started looking towards her, I thought of reasons and excuses to do so and utilized every opportunity. She always stood at the same front left corner station. Then something happened on day, I don’t know why or how, but she came to gym and chose the station right next to me, left side, and started working out. The moment I noticed this, I went crazy inside, of course I couldn’t show anything outside and had to remain calm and play cool. Once we started working out, the focus shifted several times to the workout and thankfully I didn’t do anything stupid and this was the first time, yes, after months that I heard her soft voice, she asked someone for a particular dumbbell. And then the session ended and we went to separate washrooms to freshen up. I was feeling confident that day, really confident because few other stations were also empty and she chose the station next to me. After the gym, I had made up my mind that I will talk to her today. Our gym is on the first floor and there is a really large departmental store right below the gym. Thank God, she went to that store and I followed her sometime later to not make it look obvious. I shuffled through the store trying to summon the courage to be able to break the ice, to say the first Hi, to be able to find the reason say my first Hi. She was there, looking for some flavor of green tea, I saw her from a distance and I went in her direction and I kept moving towards her, heart beats racing,  I was almost 2 meters away from her, I couldn’t go straight so I was taking the help of all the stuff racked on both sides of the aisle and then a staff came and she started talking to the staff about the tea that she wants for which the staff said that they have it in some other section and took her there and I just stood there, lost my excellent chance to break the ice. Later, I waited outside the store for a while talking to the same friend about what had happened and this girl, she went pass me and I couldn’t talk to her even then because I was on the phone and there were people around it was so much easier inside the store to find the topics to start with.

I still didn’t know her name so me and my gym buddy, tried several ways to be able to find it. We even stayed at times near the tablet where everyone marks their attendance but with no fruitful outcome. Then the other day, 3-4 days after the departmental store failed trial, after attending the session, I came out of the washroom and she was sitting there on the front bench 2 meters away, our eyes met for the first time, she had such amazing glow in her, had a wonderful aura and my heart skipped a beat and I lost all my confidence in that very moment, I turned right, packed my things and went home, feeling like a loser but with yet more admiration for her.

I kept trying to regain my confidence and having imaginary opening conversations to not make her uncomfortable and then… and then this freaking lockdown was announced in Mumbai in March 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic. All gyms closed with immediate effect. I still don’t know her name, I still don’t know practically anything about her, all I remember is her dedication, her tattoo, her smile, her glow on that particular day, her aura, her calm and confident presence and my imaginary opening conversations.

Well, it is almost a year now, millions have lost their jobs, migrated to other places, had their lives turned upside down, whereas I still live at the same place, have the same job, got paid timely, which I am extremely thankful for during such hard times and I still long to be able to talk to her, to know her, to see the world through her eyes…

And the gyms are opening again in a few days and I hope I find her and gather the courage to be able to say all that I want to. This doesn’t happen normally, right, that too at this age, right, and it happened with me and I really like it and hope for the best.