It's Simple

He winks, smiles, and laughs, the ultimate flirt, RJ has been a salesman at gyms for 15 years. When asked if he’s thought about switching jobs he simply answers “I don’t want to start over. I’m good at this. I’ve mastered it”. Clear and concise was the name of the game for RJ, our personal favorite anecdote, was when he was describing the difference between hanging with the guys and the girls, “when you’re with your guys, there’s no filter. I mean, it’s like, if you say, ‘hey I cheated on my girlfriend’, they say ‘dickhead, that was dumb’ and then you move on. Your still the same good guy. If it were a girl, it’d be like ‘why’d you do that? He’s such a good guy? How many times did you chat?’ they would obsess!”

Truth: The remarkable world of guys is that there’s good and bad. Black and White. They like things simple. Why do we try to complicate it?

Spinning

A morning person I am not, so the idea of biking at top speed and sweating profusely before the sun rose was no my idea of a good time. However, in pursuit of understand men, a lofty ambition, I grabbed my water bottle and took my first peddle. Erwin was to be our guide, and after we climbed imaginary hills and sprinted to fictional finish lines, he took some time to chat with us about spinning, his morning, and life in general.

Erwin is a strategist, he wants to be prepared for everything. He starts his day with a themed playlist, for this morning, the theme was freedom, for the upcoming MLK Holiday. Then off to work, bag packed the night before with a midget bar in case of hunger, change of clothes in case of spills, and pda to make sure he’s on schedule, “I don’t want to sit there spinning my wheels(amusing choice for a spinning instructor) I want structure”, he was a man with a plan. In order to experience life to the fullest, he wanted a structure; a strategy for everything, there was to be no fuss.

Erwin said that he used to say no to everything, it was easier than saying yes, feeling as though he were taking a stand by saying no. It took him a while, but he soon realized that by saying no, he was actually limiting his options. “I remember this one girl who said, ‘I hate that instructor, I’m never going to that class’ well, by saying no she now narrowed her class selection. It’s not helping her at all.” He likes being open to things, not saying no anymore, and it’s the safety of the structure that allows him to do so.



Opportunity: It’s not about coloring outside the lines, it’s about having the lines to color in or out of.

It's Fashion or Famine

“It’s people who have good fashion all around the world, I love it,” Noah said about his favorite site http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/ . His hair was spiked, newly shorned he told us by one of New York's finest salons, and he seemed comfortable in his 20 year old skin. “I mean, and my sister yells at me about this all the time, but I judge people on how they dress. If they dress worse than me I’m not interested” he said, and with such a snide, almost snotty remark, there was no snot or snide in his attitude. “If you come in with the flip” he paused as we looked to him blankly, “you know, the flip. Too much product and guys just take their hair in the front and “flip” it up. I already know who you are.” For Noah it wasn’t about the labels, it was about the style, and if you couldn't express yourself well, or uniquely in how you looked, they how are you supposed to express yourself in life?

Along the same lines, he is an artist, a musician, and for him, things needed to be aesthetically pleasing, so how you dressed yourself should matter, in his book, YOU should be aesthetically pleasing.

We kept chatting, from his first fashion icon Mr. Miles Davis, to his latest in the hipster, downtown look, but what really was interesting was what he said in the end. “you know, I really just want that, ‘I don’t give a f*%! look’, that it just all comes naturally”.

Truth: Even the most style and look conscious at the end of the day, want it to appear natural, that looking good is easy.