It was during a pause between sets—those necessary intervals where one pretends to be timing one’s rest, but is in fact reconsidering all of one’s life choices—or—a place where one pretends to escape the vanity of the world only to find it thriving in every mirror—that I turned to my personal trainer with a question intended, at first, to pass the time. “How would you describe yourself, mate?” I asked, expecting perhaps a string of words like “disciplined,” “motivated,” or some jargon involving “core strength” or “macros.”
But instead, he gave me a look not unlike that of a man preparing to unveil a private gospel. With the poise of a monk and the irreverence of a sailor, he said, “I’m a two eggs in the morning, two pegs in the afternoon, and stick it between two legs in the night kinda person, buddy.”
Now, there are moments in life when a statement, however crude or curious, strikes one not merely as amusing but as strangely… emblematic. I laughed, of course—how could one not? But as the laughter subsided, I found myself troubled not by the indecency of the remark (which was considerable), but by its unsettling clarity.
For in that offhand summation lay, I daresay, the distilled liturgy of a certain sort of man. The two eggs—a symbol of nourishing simplicity, the primal satisfaction of routine, the body’s unspoken covenant with the frying pan. The two pegs—not fence posts, mind you, but pegs of whisky: the gentleman’s evening benediction, both a punctuation mark to the day and a slow unravelling of the self. And finally, the third act of this rather elemental opera—the impulse that has launched ships, levelled cities, filled nurseries, and emptied bank accounts: the unrelenting pursuit of the carnal.
In three parts, the day is drawn: sustenance, intoxication, and instinct. How strangely economical! One might imagine that after thousands of years of civilisation, invention, and enlightenment, man might have become a more elaborate creature—but no. Beneath the smart watches, the philosophical podcasts, the tailored suits and quinoa bowls, he is still this: breakfast, booze, and bed.
Now, this is not to say that all men live by this code. There are saints among us (I am told), and contemplatives who rise with the dawn to ponder metaphysics and drink herbal tea. But if we are honest—brutally, comically honest—most of us hover somewhere between the treadmill and the tavern, dreaming of breakfast, bracing for work, and occasionally believing ourselves poets of passion after the second peg.
What fascinated me most was not merely the humour of his reply, but its unblushing transparency. He did not dress it in excuses or apologies. It was not the boast of a libertine nor the confession of a penitent—it was simply fact, as obvious and immutable as gravity. And perhaps that, too, is something men share: the quiet conviction that if one has eaten well, drunk just enough, and not died of loneliness, one has somehow managed to meet the day on its terms.
Of course, one could dissect this further. One could ask whether such a life is sufficient, whether it feeds the soul as well as the stomach, whether it is a liturgy or merely a litany. But in that moment, standing amid weights and sweat and fluorescent light, it felt almost divine in its absurdity. And I thought to myself—as men throughout history have done when hearing some rough truth put plainly—Well, he’s not wrong.
Now, I confess, I laughed with the unguarded delight of a schoolboy overhearing something vaguely improper at a dinner table. And as the echo of my mirth bounced off the dumbbells and protein shakes around us, I found myself reflecting: is this not, in some absurdly honest way, the anthem of manhood—a sort of primal haiku for the modern male?
And perhaps, for better or worse, that is what it means to be a man: not a grand ideal, but a humble rhythm—two eggs, two pegs, and the rest is pure fucking biology.
