I Do Not Want To Do Fitness! – by Sara Benincasa

Welcome to an advice column by me, Sara Benincasa, a person with many opinions. This column will not diagnose or “cure” anything. Hopefully, reading it will entertain and perhaps comfort you. Think of it as a divine and holy fingerblast from Heaven. Send questions to saratoninnewsletter@gmail.com. If I use your question, I’ll  keep you anonymous.

Dear Sara,

It is the custom of my friends to do Big January Things (TM). I am a holiday person, with all the goofy cheer that implies. But I am full-on JANUARY HUMBUG. I want absolutely none of this New Year New You crap, but I fear I will be left out and inadvertently insult some of my actual good friends.

For example, a bunch of neighborhood parents do Dry January Potlucks, where a different house hosts a booze-free potluck every weekend. There are baking competitions and dance parties and it is all very charming. I do not have the energy for any of it. Also, I don’t want to stop drinking for all of January. A vodka soda is my twice-weekly friend. I drink responsibly and enjoy my little treat.

My Facebook group of old college pals does a fitness challenge tied to a particular online aerobic instructor’s offerings. I truly am not interested. As I do every month, I will begrudgingly do a nutrition app thing on my phone to watch my intake of garbage food. For exercise, I like to take a long walk with my spouse every evening. That is enough for me. I will not weigh in, measure my biceps, or take before and after photos.

Am I allowed to rant to my friends about the very obvious truth that most people give up these habits early in the year? If not, what do I say instead? — Not In The Mood This Year

Dear NITMTY:

The thought of feeling peer-pressured to do anything you’ve described makes me want to hurl my desk through the wall, so know that I hold you in the light of Christ, the ORIGINAL fitness influencer (long walks in the desert and a pescatarian diet, mostly). Do what the hell you want to do with your own body, mind, and time! Everything you’ve written passes the “first, do no harm” test with flying colors.

I would want to say, “My body is my own goddamn business,” but I would not actually say this to some well-meaning pal who just wants to stay accountable for her Thighmaster (TM) routine. I advise against ranting, as I assume you want to still be friends with these people in February. Instead, I’ll offer some straightforward options as well as some less forthright versions. I know you were full o’ piss and vinegar and perhaps a fine spinach feta hand pie (JK that is ME) when you wrote to me, but I also know that doesn’t mean you love direct confrontation.

The Facebook thing is easy enough. Tell them you won’t be participating but you’re proud of all of them. Or stop after the “I won’t be participating” part. Or make up something like “I’m not using Facebook for January” (but then you’ve got to stick to it, lest they see you hitting the like button on somebody’s Portrait Mode image of a local donkey). Or say nothing and just mute their messages (you can do that, right? I haven’t been on FB in many a year, but I assume you can mute a group or updates or something.)

I love that you’re doing the daily walk thing with the spouse you dig, by the way. I get depressed sometimes (and anxious and agoraphobic and stuff), so I started a little diary in which I record adventures (an “adventure” is going out of my apartment). It’s fun to treat a walk to the coffee shop as an adventure. It gets me moving.

As for the Dry January Food Spectacular: Tell the chattiest neighbor you shan’t be participating this year, and let them spread the word. If anybody asks why, you can ignore the question or say, “Our schedule won’t allow it” or “We may have some travel coming up” or “I just don’t feel like it this year.”

I don’t expect any of these people to throw a fit, but just in case, consider the BIFF strategy: brief, informative, friendly and firm.

Anyone who gets upset is legitimately out of their fucking mind and unfit for public office, so I’m truly not worried about that. You do you, and enjoy your January.

Dear Sara,

When my friends tell me about their kids, I zone out. I chose not to have children, and I have never been a teacher, a pediatric nurse, or a human who chooses to be around little kids. I don’t even think I liked being a little kid. Adolescence arrived as a relief to me and I thoroughly enjoyed my teen years because I got to be around more and more adults (or near-adults). I thought my friends knew I was like this, but maybe now as parents they’re too tired to remember or care. How do I tell them I don’t want to hear what happened at the school bus stop or the 4th grade bake sale? — Sorry Not Sorry, Kids Bore Me

Dear SNSKBM:

You’d expect your friends to talk about their careers, right? Well, our friends with kids spend a great deal of their time keeping said children alive, and hopefully happy and healthy. It’s beyond a career. It is unreasonable to expect them to not talk about these little people who depend on them.

As somebody who chose not to have kids, I understand that you can’t relate to some of their stories. But we have to give them some grace, and be rational.

Now, if a friend seems to have an unhealthy focus on their own kid, I can understand you backing off the friendship. You didn’t sign up to hear your beloved tennis buddy emit an endless stream of sentences about their child’s report cards and pageant prowess. In the vernacular of daycare, Braggy Daddy can go bye-bye.

Wouldn’t you talk about your roommates with a friend? Especially if you had to wipe their butts and mop up their puke sometimes? Even a parent with great boundaries and a thriving career and/or social life is gonna need to talk about their kids.

I’m not suggesting you feign fascination with their offspring. But be polite when they bring up Little Tammany, Baby Tucker, or Tiny Marshall Quince-Goobling (that’s what I’m naming a baby if I get accidentally knocked up and keep it, but the middle name will be after Dok’s cat). Maybe you can ask questions that redirect the subject to be about your friend: “How did that contretemps at the playground make YOUR tummy feel?” or “Did the consumption of all those baked goods at the Winter Wonderland Buffet Fundraiser-a-thon make YOUR butthole stop convulsing?” These are just normal queries a friend asks a friend, in public, maybe at a loud volume (alternate option: a creepy whisper!).

In conclusion, I suggest you find some online friends who chose to not have kids, and make them your IRL friends if possible. I think you could use a few of them, if only to bond over how often you get to take naps and overly long baths. Then perhaps you won’t have a group of friends that feels so heavily tilted in the kid-centered direction. Expand your universe! And try to learn who Bluey is. It helps as a reference point.

Give us shiny coins!