I can say that I pretty much compete with everyone, with the exception of three people and those three happen to share my street address and my love for the “Make’em laugh” scene in Singing in the Rain. (Although, to be one hundred percent honest, I think I love it the most. And I’d be perfectly happy to say I finish second in that race, but I don’t).

I don’t compete with everybody on everything, that would be just stupid. But, there are some things that I do compete with them about, without their knowing it, of course. I still want to be friends with people.

A friend of mine called our squash games “playful competitions” – and then we both would laugh. Yeah, right, as if we weren’t really playing to win.

So – and I know I’ve mentioned this before – my days are filled with small races with flexible rules. It’s a race to the cash register at the store, it’s a race to the best parking spot, I want to make it through one more traffic light, I want to beat my old record for picking up the kids, and so on.

The best parking spot used to be the one closest to the main entrance, and if I’m the only one pulling into the parking lot, it still is, but if I’m right behind another, the best spot turns into the one that allows me to get out of the car fastest and be the first person inside the store. (To support this rationale, I now have scientific data, thanks to “Traffic”, a great book I will finish one day).

The worst place for this frame of mind is the gym. At the gym, everybody’s always looking at each other, sizing the others up. There are the pros, who dress accordingly and who own the gym. You all know who they are at your gym. Maybe it’s you.

At my gym, I am not that guy. I’m the guy who people look at wondering, “you think he really bought that T-shirt at a Belinda Carlisle show in 1990?”

There’s always that gang, a group of guys, who laugh and talk and spend four hours at the gym, talking and laughing, and working out, and admiring themselves in the mirrors. These guys may also be the pros, but most often not. The pros get in and do their stuff, like surgeons. The gang members are in good shape, but they’re not athletes. Instead, they know everybody. They’re the gym’s social connectors.

I’m not in the gang. I get in alone, I do my stuff – like a sloppy surgeon – , I listen to music, and I get out. I’m the guy the gang members look at wondering, “did he come here to read a magazine?”

Yes, I did.

It’s good for the brain.

Then there are the running women, the aerobic people, the yoga masters – those are not in my world, and are therefore disqualified from competing with me.

Then there are the regular casuals, like me.

These are the ones I compete with at the gym, in gym terms. These are the ones that push me into pressing a little more on the bench press, curl a little more, and ride the bike a little faster, and a little longer. In my fury, I also beat the lazy bastard inside me.

It’s hard to compete with the pros. I’m not an athlete. There are very few things I can beat a true athlete in. Maybe in some weird weight regime, or, say, headbutting, but realistically, it’s hard to find an athletic performance in which I would excel in a high-level competition.

Which is why I love the sauna.

That’s my last chance. The rule is: I can never be the first one to leave the sauna — unless, of course, I’m alone in there. If I get in, and there’s already somebody else, I have to sit and wait until he leaves. If I’m in there alone, and somebody comes in, I have to sit and wait until he leaves. Basically, I can only leave a sauna when I leave it empty.

Unless, there are Finns or other crazy sauna people inside. In that case, forget it.

The first one to shower is the winner.