Muscle man

A lean young man, nicely, not overly, tanned, with well developed chest, abdominal and arm muscles – I didn’t know the technical names for them – smiled brightly out of the poster. His expression bordered on manic, a touch over the brink of enthusiastic and happy, but just about clinging onto something that could pass for normal. Apart from his muscle-induced triangular torso, he would have been attractive. But as it was, he’d have to be wearing more than a pair of white boxer shorts to appeal. Which was ironic, as it would seem that it was his body (apparently just the upper half) that was the cause of his almost-crazed expression of sheer joy. Its appearance and the new-found energy that he had, so he claimed, gained in the process of attaining it.
To the left of him, on the poster, was a – his, allegedly – testimony about how some personal training, consumption of protein drinks, and presumably, although put in an understated manner, taking of a ‘food supplement’ – the one he was endorsing in the advert – had changed his life. He’d lost two and a half stone, become fitter and even given up his boring job and started his own business because of the amazing results that this ‘no gimmick, completely healthy’ product had had in so short a time. It didn’t say what this new business was, but he had been an engineer. Wow! Brains as well as beauty. One suspected that he might have gained a new partner out of this too, but none was mentioned. It seemed like an oversight. Surely part of the point of getting a body like this was the thought that one might attract others, potential partners. But I imagined that they were trying to avoid alienating gay men, by giving him a girlfriend, and straight men by giving him boyfriend. The advert was, of course, aimed at men.
He was clutching a large framed photograph of his former sorry self. In the photo, he looked sallow, bordering on grey. He was slightly slouched in posture emanating dissatisfaction if not misery. His hair was non-descript - none of the gel-teased spikes that his new perky self had. He wasn’t thin, but he was by no means fat either. His stomach perhaps a touch puffy, a little too much flesh on the ‘love handle’ area, but really not that bad at all. At worst, he was the man on the verge of becoming a little too fat, and he looked dejected. But thanks to a certain product, he had brought himself back from the brink. I found it bizarre that he had ‘always dreamed of having a six pack’ – but then I am not a man… And almost more so that he owned a large, framed photograph of himself wearing nothing but (presumably) blue boxer shorts.