Echo

Red for Leo

Ever since the beginning of August, I’ve been wearing red every day because red is the color that symbolizes the Leo Sun energy. Leo rules your hopes and wishes as well as passionate romance and ultimate creativity. Since I’m going through a Saturn conjunct my Ascendant in Leo, I’ve been learning how to channel how people see me and their first impressions of me. I’ve discovered that I come off very confident and open. By wearing red to celebrate the Leo energy, I also believe that you can focus your energy on what you want to draw towards you, and it can become very effective. I asked for people who embody the element of fire to come towards me, and it looks like it’s been happening a lot. A lot of people with bright energy.

Today, I ran one of my social experiments at the gym. I don’t know why I never did this before, considering how much time I spend at the gym, and how 5 o’clock at the gym is the new happy hour. It’s like a jungle dance in there, how different people play out the mating game. But I went to the gym with my sole purpose being to observe, and see what kind of people are drawn to me. I brought my tiny notepad to take notes.

So in my recent experiments, I’ve noted that wearing black makes people notice me but more wary at approaching me, wearing light blues makes people feel comfortable in approaching. I wore a red shirt with the silhouette of a woman tied to a stake, and I completely discombobulated the cable guy on Wednesday. He couldn’t take his eyes off my shirt and he kept losing his train of thought while he talked to me. He ended up having to leave and request that a supervisor come help me. So today I went to the gym to observe the effect of red in channeling my energy :

Well, I decided that this would be too much red as to be overwhelming in a public place. So I wore all black except for the red baseball cap.

I kept my hat pulled down so that no one could see my eyes or where I was looking. I was watching everyone. The funny thing about the gym that I noticed today is that everyone is cruising everyone else–I even saw this older Persian guy cruising this young white frat boy who looked extraordinarily “neat.” Why drink when you’ve got prime people watching and endorphins coursing through your veins?

I noticed a lot of people looking at the hat, both men and women. Some were bolder than others. This one guy came over and says that he wants to introduce himself. His friend had mentioned to him, check out that girl in the red hat, and so he wanted to come over and introduce himself because it seems that I had an effect on his friend. He said that his friend had no idea he had come over and talked to me, but it would be really cool if I walked by his friend. I was watching him the whole time and decided to call bullshit. “So are you really here for you, or are you here for your friend?” I asked. He was caught off guard. I’m here for my friend. “Well it’s too bad your friend doesn’t have any guts. You guys must be really tight for him to let you do the speaking for him.” He said that the guy was his coworker, and that they looked out for each other. I asked him what he did and he said he was an undercover cop for the department stores in the building, and that technically, he was currently on the clock. So I stop talking to him, kind of icing him out while I stretch, so he said that it seemed like I was cool and said goodbye.

I stayed on the mat and observed. There was a really cute Jewish guy on the treadmill just rocking out to his iPod. Dark hair, pale skin, long eyelashes, sensitive eyes…my type. Couldn’t decide if I thought he might be gay. Definitely a mama’s boy. Man, there’s something about Jewish guys for me. It’s love/hate. But I couldn’t stop looking at him.

This guy comes up and sits down on the mat next to me. He says that he didn’t know his friend was gonna come over and talk to me until he looked over and it was happening (yeah right), and that he wanted me to know that he wasn’t afraid to talk to me (yeah right). So I kind of chat, but I hella don’t want to talk to him because I’m not attracted to him whatsoever and he’s kind of bungling nervous and it starts making me uncomfortable. So finally, he gets up and leaves.

I see this girl who was doing planks, and her ass and thighs were so curvy and toned, she looked like she was made out of plastic. Her ass and legs looked the way GI Joe’s would look if they were designed by horny gay men. And the thing was, she was Asian! Asian girls don’t have butts. I saw her though, and all I could think of was, “Good for you, sista.” Her body was rockin’.

I try to ride the bike for a little bit, and I can see guys circling a little bit. I avoid eye contact when they walk by because I don’t want a conversation to happen. The first guy who had spoken for his friend comes up to me and sits on a bike. He says, “I don’t even want to ride the bike. I just want to talk to you. My friend came back and said he thought maybe he had mis-assessed the situation, and I told him, no, I think she shot you down. How you expect to get a girl like that if you walk around like a pussy?” I asked, “Why would you say something like that to your friend? That’s mean.” He laughs and says, “I was just kidding. But I wanna talk to you. My friend told me not to talk to you, that you looked like some kind of hardcore kickboxer or something and you could kick my ass if I wasn’t careful with what I said.” I said, “Naw, I’m nice.” But then I ask him, “So if your friend is so into me, then wouldn’t he be pissed that you’re sitting here, trying to talk to me?” He says, “No, we work as a team.” But then he thinks about it and asks, “Do you really think he’d be pissed?”

I thought about what probably transpired between the two. This dude (Christopher), who’s totally better looking than his friend, is insecure so he keeps an ugly friend around. When he sees a girl he wants to hit on, he convinces his ugly friend that he should totally try something. So he pretends to play instigator by introducing himself to the girl and acting like his friend wants to meet her. Then he eggs on his friend to make an approach, at which point he will inevitably be shot down, because he’s being sent into a situation where he’s in way over his head. So this friend, the better looking friend, comes back around and apologizes for his awkward friend, then goes in for the kill. Basically, it’s like a reverse bait and switch. He comes up, and says his friend digs you. The friend turns out ugly. But the good looking friend apologizes and then hits on you, letting you know that he’s a better choice anyway.

Boys and their games.

So I told him, yeah, it totally sucks that he’s trying to talk to me after he tried to get his friend to make an approach. It’s like throwing his friend under a train to make himself look good. This guy didn’t know what to make of me and I just stopped talking to him. So finally, he took the hint, said, I didn’t even want to ride the bike, I just wanted to talk. But I just smiled and went back to watching TV, so he left.

I went back to the mat and did some abs. I saw this guy who kept circling closer and closer to me. He kind of looked like Derek Fisher and had a nice energy to him, kind of Leo-ish. So we made eye contact a few times and smiled, and at one point, I saw him standing by a machine looking like he was rehearsing something. So finally, I see him make an approach. He was going for the, “Hey, don’t I know you” angle, but just as he walked up, I turned my head as though I didn’t realize he was about to make a move. Okay, I admit, I just wanted to see how he would adjust. So he stopped and kind of looked unsure of himself, then walked away. It was like a plane going in to land, but then taking off again. So I watched him circle some more, but then he walked up. “Haven’t you been stretching for a while? Are you gonna work out at all?” I needed him to repeat it a couple of times until I realized he
was making a joke. I laughed and he seemed relieved that his approach hadn’t been completely turned down. He kept stopping by and talking to me, then he told me that he really liked the boxing class that was going on in the aerobics room. He asked me if I ever did it. I said that I’d done it once, but I also liked the boot camp class on Wednesdays. He said that he would be interested in checking out that class, then said that maybe he’d see me around. I neglected to say that I don’t go to that class anymore because I just joined Toastmasters so I’m at those meetings on Wednesdays. But I liked that guy’s energy.

Everything else was okay. I didn’t see the two really buff and intense girls who circle each other and don’t seem to know whether they want to fuck each other or fight each other. I did watch this one trainer that I always watch. He watches me when I’m not looking, and I watch him when he’s not looking. Sometimes we accidentally make eye contact and we nod at each other like we’re totally strangers, but we keep an eye on each other. He’s the type of guy who’s bad news. I wonder if he thinks I’m the type of girl who’s bad news. Because we keep our distance from each other, but we’re always watching.

I would like to go again and see what else I can do with the color red in the next week or so.

For now, I’ll be heading out of town to see what kind of trouble I can get into in the Texan heat.