Overheard in the Sauna

Or How My Dreams of a Scandinavian Utopia at the David Lloyd were dashed.

A few days ago, during a child-free trip to my local gym, I eschewed the gym floor and all its high-tech machinery and super-eager workout champs in favour of the little spa area whose warmth and serenity appealed much more to my frozen, sleep deprived senses. With a dog-eared paperback under my arm (apologies to all who may be scandalised about potential book wreckage but I take whatever I’m reading everywhere with me so long as they’re not borrowed copies) I stepped into the sauna and slipped quietly into the corner of the wooden bench.

The week before we’d taken a trip to Oslo where we’d been introduced to the community sauna scene and spent a blissful 45 minutes each (splitting the 90 minute slot to take turns looking after our daughter who, at 2, is not sauna ready) sitting around in makeshift saunas on the harbour with the friendly locals, listening to them chat away while the sun set over the water and accepting their encouragement as my husband attempted to brave the recommended but icy full body immersion in the North Sea. It was with this blissful memory fresh in my mind that I entered my local sauna, so it’s probably my own fault for being so disappointed.

There were two men already in there. Both were in good shape, one looked to be in his thirties, the other probably more likely in his fifties. Like so many of the men I come across in my gym in the after-work hours, they were doing their best to exude masculinity. Legs wide open, they took up plenty of space on the wooden benches and they were talking in loud, authoritative voices about - of course - the gym. I don’t know why but none of the men in my gym seem to talk about anything other than their workouts, the gym’s management system or how much protein they’ve consumed that day. Neither acknowledged my existence when I entered and I felt my Scandic expectations begin to wilt. I opened my book and squinted at the page in the dim lighting, the mens’ voices cutting into my ability to concentrate. They seemed relaxed and chatty and, spotting an opening as they mentioned something I actually knew about the gym’s upcoming renovations (fascinating, I know), I decided to join the chat. I opened my mouth but before I could speak, one of the men - the older one - changed tack.

“I don’t actually live that close to this branch.” His voice was firm and articulate but sullen, like he’d gone to a private boys school and was supposed to be a lawyer but was actually a bit of a fuck up.

The other guy looked over at him and replied, “Oh?”

“Nah, it’s only maybe ten mins in the car.”

“That’s not so bad then.”

“Nah, nah. But I’m about to be banned for driving so I don’t know how easy it’ll be to keep coming here.”

I could feel the other guy was as keen as I suddenly was to know more but he settled on responding with, “Oh. Well, the bus is okay.”

“Yeah,” the first guy murmured unsurely. “I don’t know anything about buses.”

I worked overtime to keep my eyes from rolling and looked fervently at my book. The second guy asked how long he was going to be banned from driving for and the anti-busser shrugged. “I don’t know. I go to court next week." There was a beat and then he said, “It’s the second time I’ve been banned so it might be for a while.” All this time there wasn’t a trace of shame in this man’s voice. All the pity at the inconvenience was for himself.

Finally the second guy couldn’t help himself. “What was it. Speeding?”

“Yeah. I just can’t do 20 mph you know. I just can’t do it.”

Suddenly the gently building heat the sauna was feeding me tipped into full-fledged hot anger. I’ve listened to a lot of shit in these rooms from men talking about women with opinions that I haven’t liked or trying to out-do each other in base, gross ways. For some reason though, this made me angrier. Maybe it was the expectations I’d gone in with that day, perhaps it stemmed from my constant anxiety about the world now I have a toddler or maybe it was because it was such a basic fucking thing this man-child apparently couldn’t do. He literally couldn’t drive to the speed limit. I mean…come on. And he didn’t care. The law was coming down on him for the second time and he wasn’t going to change a thing.

The other guy nodded enthusiastically. “I hear you man. Me and my wife we have like thirty, maybe forty, speeding tickets in the last few years. We just ignore them man. They don’t do anything.”

I stood up.

What do you say in that circumstance? Do you tell them they’re disgusting? Do you plead for them to reconsider their ways? I didn’t. I didn’t do anything other than walk out feeling furious. And so sad.

Because the world is in such an awful, tenuous place right now. There’s division and famine and war and natural disasters and so much more to contend with. My hope has always been that people, normal people, are good. And look I know that ten minutes listening to two inane men in a gym sauna doesn’t mean anything but isn’t it disappointing? Isn’t it so disappointing that the people you interact with most days, near your home, have such disregard for the basic safety of other people?

I wrote this because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About how we assume we’re essentially on the same page with those around us and then, sometimes, someone says or does something that can alert us to the fact that that isn’t true. It’s like when my friends in the US discovered their family members were voting for Trump. Or when a colleague at work texts you a gay joke and you’re suddenly not sure how close to the bone it really is. I want to believe the best in everyone but I also don’t want to walk around with blinkers on. Am I spiralling because of one annoying chat I overheard? Maybe. Maybe.

As I pulled out of the gym, warmly nestled into my car, podcast on, heater blowing, I saw speedy gonzales himself trudging off, looking small and insignificant as he shivered inside his puffer jacket. He was travelling a lot slower than 20mph.