For the most part, I really enjoy the new year. People are in high spirits and there's a sort of playful annoyance about accidentally writing last year's date on papers and emails. But, after all that marshmallow feel-good crap has faded out of view, my negative self has come up with a very very large pet peeve: resolutioners at the gym.

I am by no means the most physically fit person around. I'm no stranger to making a resolution that goes somewhere along the lines of losing ten or fifteen pounds, but I maintain a presence at the gym all year round. It didn't used to be that way; I used to cringe at the thought of physical activity. Yet after a summer spent living in the city I noticed upon my return home I had lost a few pounds and decided to join a gym to maintain the recent weight loss. I have been going ever since and now I can't go more than a few days without working out in some way. The gym at my school is absolutely wonderful and I've got a routine; I know where all the machines are, I recognize the regulars. But a phenomenon occurs each year at this time: everyone decides they want to lose the pounds and everyone decides to go to the gym at the same exact time, forcing regulars like myself to wait endlessly for machines that just a month ago were vacant. It's not like I have a problem with people trying to better themselves and lose weight; I have a problem with people who are very ambitious in January, begin to realize the treadmill is not as fun as they imagined in February, and have given up the gym altogether by the time March rolls around. It's amazingly predictable; after two months or so, gym attendance dwindles down to the same people who always go with a slight surge around spring break. But prior to this massive burnout is a frustrating period where going to the gym is like going to the mall on a Saturday afternoon right before Christmas. There's no parking, no treadmills or ellipticals open, the weights are taken, all the mats are occupied by people who are more than likely going to give up and decide that next year will be the year for them. Now, maybe I'm being to pessimistic and bitter about the whole situation, but I'm relying on simple powers of observation. If everyone who made a resolution kept at it, the gym would become increasingly crowded each year until it became too inefficient to work out there at all. This never happens, so either a large majority of regulars are graduating with their places being filled by the resolutioners or these uppity, eager new gym goers simply quit after awhile.

I'd say that if someone wants to lose weight, he or she should not use New Year's as a way to transition into fitness. There's something about these promises that are just so false and cheap. Who am I to complain if a person is taking the initiative to be more active? Well, when you're sitting on the hip abductor in your new leggings you picked out because you thought it would motivate you to go the gym more often, sipping your Evian and slowly clicking through your iPod while doing five reps every ten minutes while other people are waiting an eternity for you to be finished, I'm going to complain.