'I'm 51, divorced and my date just brought a protein shake to the park.'

This article originally appeared on Karen Freyer's Substack, Act II. It has been republished here with permission.

The Fitness Guy met me at Rushcutters Bay Park. He was handsome in that sculpted, F45-at-dawn way.

The kind of body that requires meal prep, Tupperware containers of boiled chicken, and a discipline I have never possessed. (I have eaten pasta for dinner four nights this week. This is not a confession. This is a lifestyle.)

He took a sip of his sludge. "So what do you do for fitness?"

I tried to think of something that sounded vaguely athletic. "I walk," I said.

"Yeah? How many km?"

I had no idea. I walk to get coffee. I walk to clear my head. I do not strap a Garmin to my wrist to measure the efficiency of my existence. "Maybe... three?"

His face did something. Not disappointment, exactly. More the look you make when you realise you've walked into the wrong lecture hall. (I know that look. I have made that look. I was making it right now.)

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He started talking about his PB — Personal Best — and something called "active recovery." I nodded as though I understood.

In truth, I am the least sporty person you will ever meet. At school, I skipped PE with flimsy excuses about music rehearsal: piano, harpsichord, chamber group. By Year 9, the PE teacher had stopped even pretending to look for me. I was in a practice room. Reading. (This has not changed.)

He turned to face me on the bench, squinting slightly in the sun. He looked at me like I was a piece of equipment that was malfunctioning.

"I have to be honest," he said. (Here it comes.) "This isn't going to work."

"Oh?"

"We just want different things. You want..." He waved a hand at my general person. "...whatever."

Whatever. My lack of muscle tone: a lifestyle choice. My personality: unquantified. My value: unclear.

"I want sporty," he said.

We. Him and his abs. Me and my silence.

The bench felt too small. I wanted the harbour to rise up and swallow me. For a second, I felt the old shame—the feeling that I was failing a test I hadn't even studied for.

But then I looked at the shaker bottle. And I looked at him, sitting there, calculating the nutritional value of the date. And something shifted.

"That's a shame," I said. "I was just thinking how exhausting it must be to have a personality that fits in a shaker bottle."

His face went blank. The glitch of a man who has never been insulted by someone who doesn't run.

I stood up. "Good luck with your macros."

I walked back to my car, spine straight. I didn't count the kilometres. (Three, probably. Maybe four. Who cares.)

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The Takeaway.

Rejection usually stings. But sometimes, it's a gift wrapped in Lycra. He wanted "sporty." I wanted someone who could hold a conversation that wasn't about protein absorption.

We are not for everyone. Thank God.

Karen Freyer is a former journalist and the author of the upcoming memoir, Still. She writes ACT II, a newsletter documenting the indignity of re-entry—with more honesty and dry humour than is probably advisable.

This article originally appeared on Karen Freyer's Substack, Act II. It has been republished here with permission. You can check it out, here.

Feature image: Canva.