So yesterday, I am about three-quarters of the way through 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer at my gym (no, seriously -- it was the only productive thing I did yesterday), and this guy comes up to me in the [Name Of My Gym] Personal Training Gear. Says he, "So, how're you doing?"

Please understand that while sweaty and plugging away on the elliptical, I am not at my most glamorous. My hair is currently shoulder-length, a little too short for a decent ponytail, so it tends to sort of hang all sweaty-like. I am listening to a podcast of NPR's awesome Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, which -- delightfully -- takes just about 45 minutes. I have my raspberry Dasani to which I treat myself whenever I get myself to go in, and I am happily ensconced in Please Don't Talk To Me World. I am not, you might say, in the best condition in which to receive Dave, The Personal Trainer.

However, Dave TPT has the same thing going for him that most trainers assigned to randomly hit up women working out on the elliptical machines have going for them, which is that he is, not to put too fine a point on it, the best-looking person I have seen in person in several months, not counting parties attended by reality-show contestants, who are outliers. Dave's hair is a little too short for my personal tastes, but he has the advantage of the only thing I truly and honestly need, which is a set of blue eyes that are That Particular Blue against which I have absolutely no defense whatsoever. I do not deny the shallowness of this. He isn't even particularly enormously built or anything -- in clothes, he just looks like a fit dude, not a bodybuilder.

Aaaaanyway, says Dave, "How're you doing?" I tell him I'm doing okay. He asks a few introductory questions that lead me to believe he is conducting a survey. I continue to sweat and talk, sweat and talk. How long has it been since I was in? (A: In this case, a while.) How long have I been a member? (A: Several years.) What makes it difficult to get myself there when I don't go? (A: Insanely busy. No, really. Not that I'm saying this is an excuse.)

Have I ever considered.... PERSONAL TRAINING? The answer to this, of course, is yes, partly because I have heard how positively Tara talks about her experiences with Vesna, and partly because GOOD LORD, I am sick of remotivating myself. Before Dave and I can talk about this, however, I have to lay the groundwork so that he understands why I, while I appear not to be the 45-minutes-on-the-elliptical type, am not a newbie. So I explain the whole thing, the long road to here, and of course, this sets him back a bit. I have been, I admit to him, stuck for quite a while. He wonders why. I hesitate to admit that during most of 2005, I was simply too happy and complacent to really worry about much of anything. I explain how I was dorking out on Firm tapes during the early months of 2006, and how I had to stop for a while because I was killing my knees.

We discuss... weight training. Bleeeeaaargh. I gesture vaguely toward the weights half of the gym, as opposed to the cardio half, and I say to him, "That whole... area over there, I find very... bleeeech." He laughs. "I have," I explain, "an overwhelming fear of looking like a complete and utter dope." "Everyone thinks that," he reassures me. He asks me whether I think it would help to work with somebody regularly, for the sake of "accountability."

Ooooooh, wrong move, Dave. I think of "accountability" as essentially a synonym for "blame." As if I'm not accountable to myself every damn day of my life, right? I explain this to Dave. "I don't really like the idea of external accountability, because it won't last," I tell him. "If I'm coming in so that somebody won't yell at me, then I won't keep coming in." He pauses. He smiles, but not in a mean way. "Well... but you said you're having a hard time coming in anyway." "I don't... always like to talk about it a lot," I explain. Remember, this entire time, Dave is standing there, and I am watching the time remaining tick down, and I am still panting and sweating.

He ultimately explains the exorbitant cost of personal trainers, which is almost enough to make me choke on my water. "The cost is definitely the main reason people don't want to do it," he admits. "I can understand," I say. He makes me promise to think about it. He also starts to ask me how old I am, and then he stops and says he won't ask me how old I am. I volunteer this information anyway. "Oh," he says. "I was going to guess you were younger than that, actually."

Suuuuuuure you were, Dave. I look young enough to be my own sister! Hee hee. Interestingly enough, there is not a trace of hostility or defensiveness in this entire conversation. Dave knows why I'm there, and he has now heard enough to know what I know and what I don't know, and how much I've already proved, and how much is left. And I know why Dave is there, and he knows I know, and I know he knows I know, and he knows... well, you get the picture.

The way we left things was very, very close to me saying, "I will probably let you talk me into this later, but not today," so he told me that he was going to watch out for me, and that I should expect him to come and bug me again. It was an altogether pleasant, utterly enjoyable 15-minute discussion that carried me all the way through the last third of my time on the elliptical. At first, what struck me funny about it was that he was so cute and so nice, and that I was such a damn sucker, and that he was right about everything, but that I probably would have nodded and smiled even if he didn't, because he has the same blue eyes as other people who have gotten me into trouble in the past.

But later, what kind of got to me was this: I stood there, sweating and panting and looking completely dorky, in the setting that was, in my youth, most likely to make me feel utterly awful about myself and utterly lacking in confidence, and I conducted a conversation for 15 minutes with this adorably cute guy who was there to discuss with me the matter of working out. I very nearly flirted with him. More than once. While working out. This is what I was interested in later. Somewhere along the line, despite the fact that this will probably be a battle of one kind or another all my life, I lost the part where I was so utterly horrified by the idea of even discussing it that the mere thought would have caused me to crawl into a hole.

In other words, at first, I was amused by the content of this conversation. In retrospect, I was fascinated that I had it and did not die and barely thought about that part until later.