Live Through This

Notes on Becoming a Mark

Or how to breakup with your personal trainer.

Arachne by Otto Henry Baker, 1884

The second or third time I trained with Pam, a personal trainer I hired after my dad died, she pulled a ring off my finger and put it on hers. I panicked. Over the years when friends borrowed a t-shirt here or a jacket there, my anxiety would shoot through the roof until they gave the item back, unable to survive losing even a pair of flip-flops.

I hate this about myself, and so I didn’t say a word. I wanted to be a generous person. I wanted to be a person who doesn’t care about possessions.

But my failure to speak up became a pattern, and for the next fifteen months, whatever Pam wanted from me, Pam got from me. After it was all said and done I had lost money, time, dignity and the confidence to stand up for myself. I believe it was the first time I was a mark.

I started weight-training with Pam because I thought that was the answer — or at least one answer — to grief and menopause. I planned to buy one training package, have Pam explain to me how to use every weight machine and then fly solo.

That plan failed. I’d like to say that I kept training with Pam because she manipulated me into it, but that wouldn’t be quite fair. Pam manipulated me into a lot of things, but I…