by A diary entry on lacing up for love and discovering everyone already knows everyone’s business
Monday, A Trend I Joined With Genuine Enthusiasm
Darlings, run clubs are, apparently, replacing dating apps entirely as the way London singles are meeting these days, membership up considerably, one in five runners reportedly going on an actual date with someone from their club, and I joined one three weeks ago with the specific, if slightly embarrassing, hope of becoming one of that statistic myself.
What nobody warned me about, and what I feel deserves considerably more coverage than the wholesome fitness angle currently receives, is that a run club, once you are three weeks deep, functions less like a peaceful jog through the park and more like an extremely fit, extremely gossipy village, where everyone already knows exactly who fancies whom, who has already dated whom, and who is currently, per the club’s unofficial but thoroughly enforced etiquette, off limits.
Monday Afternoon, A Piece Of Intelligence I Received Unprompted
Within one single Tuesday evening loop of the park, I was informed, entirely unprompted, about a situationship that ended badly six months ago and apparently still affects who runs at the front versus the back of the group, information I did not ask for but now cannot unlearn every single week.
Tuesday, My Own Small Contribution To This Ecosystem
I would like to state for the record that I have, so far, remained scrupulously neutral in all club romantic politics, though I confess this neutrality is becoming considerably harder to maintain now that I have started noticing things myself, which several members have already, somewhat gleefully, pointed out to me directly.
A Trend Worth The Gossip Tax, Probably
Whatever the romantic outcome for me personally, I have made genuinely excellent friends and improved my five kilometre time considerably, so even in the entirely likely event that the dating statistics do not include me, I consider this experiment a qualified success.
Wednesday, I did eventually attempt to extract myself gracefully from this particular gossip network by changing the subject entirely to marathon training plans, a strategy that worked for almost four minutes before someone new arrived with an entirely fresh piece of club intelligence I also did not ask for.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
