[ReservedEnthusiast]

Chapter 05 Part 02
The Friends

Occasionally I did run into someone I know on the pool deck, but I was sure to always have my towel in hand to shield my manhood from their line of sight. I sometimes also had the comfort of already being in the water.

One time, I met a good friend of mine as he was getting out of the pool and I was getting in. We met originally by going to the same bible study at church, so we were becoming pretty good friends by this point. Oh gosh he was good-looking. His face, to start with, was nicely structured and featured a wide, white, pleasant smile. His torso and lower body weren't especially defined, but he had a perfect swimmer’s shape - the broad shoulders and slightly rounded pecs; the slender yet muscular legs; and the almost flat, gently rolling abdominal muscles. His bottom wasn’t muscular enough to have dimples in the sides, but it still filled his speedo in all the right ways.
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Side note: a physical feature that I think makes a guy incredibly attractive is when the butt’s dimples are so pronounced that the suit slightly lifts away from the skin. It’s a subtle sign of true muscle definition, and I’m a big fan of subtlety!
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His skin was free of hair and had an even, natural golden tan, thanks to his Asian or South Asian ancestry. It wasn’t that kind of tan where you can tell they’ve been in the sun far too much. Use these two photos as reference for his appearance. Picture the smooth body and skin tone of the first guy combined with the face and muscle mass (not not definition) of the second:



Being a former high school swimmer and an ex-member of our college swim team, he still wears a speedo to swim. When I ran into him this time, he was wearing a Q Swimwear Spain classic brief (the model from before the company restyled it), and despite his Asian heritage, he was showing quite a nice bulge in the front. We only talked for a moment because he was in a rush. Unfortunately, we never got to swim together because we were both busy when the other was free. I’m sure I could have improved my form a lot with him! He was apparently a valuable asset to the team.

Another time, I ran into a friend from freshman year. I was already in the pool when he arrived, and I finished my last lap just as he noticed me and stood at the end of my lane. This friend was also a former swimmer (go figure), so he continued to swim for exercise in college. He was more conservative, though, so he wore royal blue knee-length jammers. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t attractive in them; quite the contrary. He still had a noticeable protrusion in the front of his suit, his quads and hamstrings were very lean but showing definition, and his bottom showed just enough strength to it to be respectable.

There are many reasons guys can be a fitness inspiration/object of envy for me. The guy next door in my dorm freshman year (see Becoming an Enthusiast 03) was motivation because he was like a muscular demigod walking the earth. This friend, on the other hand, was like a merman gracefully gliding through the water. His body was flat and smooth, his shoulders wide and sturdy, and his arms quick to propel him forward. We’d wanted to swim together regularly, but our class schedules didn’t line up. Case in point: on this day, I was about to leave as he was just arriving.

As we talked, him standing on the pool deck above me treading water in the pool, I revealed that I was struggling big time with my flip turns at the ends of the laps, therefore stopping my momentum at every length to turn around; and being out of shape, this meant I stopped a lot more than I should to catch my breath. I wanted to force myself to keep going. So, he jumped in my lane and gave me a demonstration. As he repeated the flip turn a few times, he had me hover underwater or a better view of how his body moves. I unfortunately had to leave but was very thankful for the short lesson. I gave him my lane and we parted ways.

I most commonly saw another friend from church, though. He wasn’t a swimmer - an ex-football player, actually - but he worked as a lifeguard at the rec center pool. That meant that I would often see him up on his pedestal watching over all the swimmers, and I therefore felt extra awkward about my poor skills and unbecoming body. I already mentioned that I usually choose a lane far away from the lifeguard to hide my work-in-progress form.

With this friend, not only did I want to hide my form but also the fact that I’m in a speedo/jammer. I figured that because he wasn’t a swimmer and we are both rather conservative, he might not have passively ignored seeing me in it. (In hindsight, I’m pretty sure this is nonsense. If I’m there to swim and workout, he should expect to see me in a jammer or speedo. But I was still shy about being seen in one by a close friend.) Whenever I did see him, though, I’d wave “bye” to him at the end as I enter the locker rooms across the pool from where he sits. That way, it would only be a quick glance and I’d be able to hold my towel at my side to shield his line of sight.

The Rapid Splice Jammer carried me through the next school year when I would begin swimming with a guy who would become my best friend. He would also get me closer to returning to wearing a speedo in the pool and out, but that’s for the next chapter.