I mentioned this girl, the one we call Ugly, in my last story. She's one of the instructors where my friend and I work out, but she's far from the ugly her name implies. Even when I first met her, when she was overweight, she still wasn't ugly by any definition. So, why do we call her that, if she's not ugly? Well, in Turkey, when someone is playing with a baby, one of the things they do is tell the baby that they're ugly. They don't say it to the parents, because that would be insulting their child. They say it directly to the baby, the way we say "you're a pretty baby, yes you are", using that same baby talk tone of voice. And when you say it to the baby, everyone here knows it means exactly the opposite. But, babies aren't the only ones people do that to. Sometimes adults use it as a way of flirting with someone else. When they do it that way, it's more like telling each other that they are uglier, meaning the one they say it to is beautiful.
That was the case here, except I'm not the one who started saying it to her. I don't even know which of the two of them said it first. I just know that my best friend and this girl call each other ugly every time they see each other. And, I'm not even sure whether it's actual flirting, or just friendly banter. Well, considering my friend's reaction to me and Senem, and how he felt I should be going after Ugly instead, I'd say his side of it is definitely not flirting. Her side of it I'm not too sure about one way or the other. I mean, she seems to light up a little whenever my friend is around. Yet, other than their ugly words, she hasn't said or done anything I would call flirting with him. Then again, she's done even less than that with me and my friend still thinks she wants me. That was the whole question here, why would he think not only that I had a shot with her, but also get pissed at me for being with someone other than her? There was obviously something going on that I didn't know anything about.
Before I get back to that, let me tell you about Ugly. She's one of the instructors where we go to exercise, and more specifically, she teaches the step aerobics class. I noticed her the first day we started there, not because she was beautiful, but because she was too out of shape to be an instructor. I mean, she was 20 or 30 pounds overweight, and all of that was in the wrong places. Big fat ass, heavy thighs and a gut that was worse than mine when I started. She did however have a very cute face, and a nice personality, the same thing we always say about fat chicks, except in this case it was true. And, for some reason I liked her better than the other female instructors right from the start.
There was just something about her, fat and all, that I found attractive and sexy. And I was the first of us two to talk to her about something other than our exercise routines. Admittedly, the things I said came out all wrong in Turkish. Like asking if one of the posters on the wall was her when she'd been in better shape. Or commenting that it must be difficult to get back in shape after her pregnancy, when she'd never been pregnant. She didn't take offense to the things I said, probably because she understood that I wasn't trying to be insulting even if it came out that way. Especially the pregnancy remarks, which she took as me trying to give her an excuse for being so out of shape.
She didn't stay out of shape for long though. I mean, she was leading at least 4 step aerobics classes a day, so she started losing her fat quickly. At least I didn't screw up my comments about her looking better or about being jealous that she got in shape so fast while I still looked like shit. And, she started waving at me every time she saw me enter the gym. But that all changed for some reason, and I think the reason was me. Because, the better looking she got, and the more attention she got from other guys, the less I felt comfortable trying to strike up conversations with her. Probably because, even though I had no designs on her, she was getting more and more out of my league all the time.
When she was overweight, and no one else paid much attention to her, she felt more approachable. And as she got better looking, I felt like I was a mere mortal trying to hit on a goddess. Like I said, it wasn't her putting up walls between us, it was me. And like I also said, while I wasn't trying to get anything going with her, it started to feel like I was. So I backed off, way off, and left her to the guys who might actually stand a chance with her. And because I backed off, so did she I guess, because the hello waves and the conversations that went with them slowly stopped too.