That’s Not the Body

At the end of the summer of 2025, my best friend and I went to the beach at Fire Island, in the Pines. It was a relatively quiet day, but as always, there was plenty of beauty everywhere. Every age. Every color. Every kind of confidence.

At one point, we noticed a man walking by. A deep brown, silky smooth Black man, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, with an impeccable body. Every muscle pronounced. Perfectly proportioned. The kind of physique people stare at without trying to hide it.

My best friend made a comment about his body. I said, “That’s not the body.”

He looked at me confused, so I explained.

When I see a body like that, I absolutely appreciate the work that went into creating and maintaining it. I understand discipline. I understand effort. I could even understand the desire to inspect every inch. But that is not what I see first.

I see time. I see pressure. I see rigid scheduling, dietary restrictions, and habits that cannot easily bend. I see someone whose life has to be organized around maintenance. I see someone who does not get sick days from their identity.

I also see the unsustainability.

I imagine what happens if life intervenes. An injury. An illness. A loss. An event that disrupts the routine. I think about what it would mean for someone whose sense of worth might be tied to a body that requires constant upkeep. I think about the esteem issues that often precede that level of discipline. The teased skinny kid. The mocked obese one. The person who learned that admiration was conditional.

Even with all the achievement, I imagine someone who still sees themselves the way they did before the mirrors and the attention. Because mirrors and attention do not cure self perception. They only distract from it.

That is why I said, that’s not the body.

If you love someone who looks like that, find something else to fall in love with quickly. Odds are, life will not allow that body forever.

For the record, I have worked out for most of my adult life. My health, physical strength, and appearance matter to me. I have maintained a similar size and physique since my twenties, but I am not confused about why. It is discipline. It is consistency. And it is also circumstance.

If I stopped the modest exercise I do or abandoned the habits that support my health, things would change. My baseline would not disappear overnight, but it would shift. And if someone is attracted to my abs, my chest, my back, or my arms, I would hope they have something else to fall back on.

Bodies are temporary. Discipline is situational. Attraction that survives time has to reach deeper than muscle.

That’s more than the body.