Where is Furry? The Gym.
The Gym Effect: I go to the gym pretty often, a couple times a week, but it isn’t my life. As I load weights onto my bar, I often find myself lifting the lightest bar in the room. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with that. But as a competitive person, I couldn’t help but wonder why I felt below average. Am I just not made in the lab to lift triple digits? Do most people go to the gym 6 days a week?
The statistician in me knows the answer: No. The amount I lift isn’t even below average (again, not that there’s anything wrong if it were). I could convince you by pelting you with facts and figures, but instead let’s do a thought experiment:
- You decide to turn your garage into a gym to bring in passive income.
- After reaching out to 200 friends (or whoever ended up in your Contacts app), you recruit nine members who all happen to be furries, with the following respective fursonas: ant (<3 bug furries), bear, cat, dog, elephant, fox, giraffe, hippo, ibis.
- The ant and the bear come every single day. They are both incredibly strong, at least in terms of the raw tonnage they hoist and belongingness with which they walk around the gym. Thankfully, they both embody good form and gym etiquette and are eager to help other members.
- The other seven members each come once a week: the cat on Mondays (guess they aren’t Garfield), the dog on Tuesdays, …, the ibis on Sundays. Whereas the ant and bear walk around the gym like it’s their home, the others walk around hesitantly. They look at the ant and bear and wonder whether they are just built different, or if someday (with enough working out), anyone can lift like them.
- One Monday morning, you ask the cat how they are finding the gym and what you could do to improve their experience. The cat says, “Mrw, it’s a great gym, and I love working out, but I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it.” You look at the cat in confusion for a moment, because even if it were a competition on pounds lifted, she would come in third place of the nine members, after the ant and bear.
But then you realize what’s going on: The Gym Effect. The cat hasn’t even seen the other six members because they come just as infrequently as she does and don’t happen to overlap. She only knows of the ant and the bear, and so she – and any of the other six members who have a competitive mindset – may feel below average, being 3rd place of 3.
Your thoughts are screaming, PREMO IT’S NOT A COMPETITION. Yes it is! I’m an alpha werewolf who has to assert my dominance through my physical prowess. You’re absolutely right, it’s not a competition. And that’s the best solution: Enjoy working out alongside the ant and bear, taking inspiration from their form and commitment, while understanding that they are “the 1%” in terms of gym rattiness.
The same goes for the furry fandom. If you’re like me, you only go to one convention each year, the one that’s nearest to you. And even on that convention weekend you spread out your time between the convention and other activities to do and potential non-furry friends to reconnect with out in the city. You have $1000 of animal costuming that you’ve accrued and cobbled together over the years. You emailed the con staff to ask if the costuming, taken together, could be considered a “fursuit” for purposes of the fursuit parade. But regardless of what they respond, you know that you 100% belong to the furry community, no matter whether you “work out” once a year or every single day.
And that’s where furry is: a community of animal-inspired people who accept you for who you are and however you show up.
P.S. This doesn’t just apply for the Gym and the Furry community. It applies to any space to which people bring such positivity and acceptance.