I’m officially launching my second series here at Asheville Explorer, titled “Overheard in the Asheville Saunas,” a sort of play on my first series on this blog (now in its seventh edition) Overheard on Haywood Road, which pokes fun at the bordering-on-parody hipster nonsense I frequently overhear on West Asheville’s Haywood Road, the epicenter of hipster nonsense in Western North Carolina.
Overheard on Haywood Road is parodying a very specific type of Ashevillian. Think, someone who has an extensive collection of fashion hats, wears a lot of Carhartt (despite doing very little outdoor work and virtually no farming), has an unironically ironic waxed mustache, hates Taylor Swift on principle (but unironically loves anything Aaron Dessner touches, blissfully unaware that he contributed to seven Taylor Swift albums), identifies as queer but in more of a conceputal sense since they’ve never actually had a homosexual encounter or relationship (but they’re open to one and/or feel more “at home” in the queer community than with “the straights”), uses therapy speak to justify all their bad behavior, probably drives a vintage Bronco, and likes to emphazie their blue-collar lifestyle of say, being a barista/bartender/server/chapbook author/poet/death doula but lives in a downtown Asheville loft their trust fund pays for white looking down at folks who’ve had to embrace the soul suckingness of corporate America because “good, honest jobs,” don’t pay for mid-tier apartments in south Asheville or Weaverville, let alone loft apartments downtown.
You could probably get ChatGPT to generate eerily realistic approximations of what these folks might say, because their stereotype has been studied and parodied (and yet, in this case, it has a deep basis in reality).
Lately—and rest assured, Haywood Road is still providing plenty of content—I’ve been overhearing some real ridiculous shit—but from a slightly different type of Ashevillian (or visitor to Asheville)—in the various saunas I frequent here in Asheville.
Unfortunately—and I only say unfortunately, because I’m not sure I want to be lumped into the same buckets as the folks I’m going to gently (respectfully!) poking fun at here—I consider myself something of a sauna enthusiast (I saw—and reposted—a meme from one of my favorite accounts, @ordinarypeoplememes that read “Cold plunges changed my life,” the other day, and it felt…targetted).
I use the sauna almost daily after workouts at the Gold’s Gym in Asheville’s Oakley neighborhood. I’m a weekly devotee of Asheville’s Sauna House. I’ve dabbled here and there in Asheville’s newest sweat venture, Drip Sauna (I really like the woodfired and outdoor aspects of Drip Sauna, but can’t help feel like I’m cheating on the Sauna House every time I go there), and something I like about saunas is their propensity to foster conversation between both strangers and friends (and…first or second dates; I’m consistently surprised how often I run into what feels like first or second dates at both Sauna House and Drip Sauna, which like, isn’t super surprising because it probably is a good place to get to know someone, but I’m slightly commitment adverse and definitely have a twinge of body dysmorphia, so I don’t know that two hours shirtless would be somewhere I’d want to spend with essentially a stranger, which I know, says more about me than them), which of course, leads to overhearing some pretty wild conversations.
I’ve written about conversations I’ve overheard and participated in, in saunas before (which I why I have an entire blog category devoted to sauna interactions), but just recently, after overhearing a bevy of really great stuff, I decided to turn it into another series here, both as a way to gently (respectfully!!!!) rib another aspect of Asheville, but to also highlight, in my own way, the subtle shift between who once populated Asheville—the hipsters (alongside the artists, outdoor enthusiasts, brewers Subura-drivers, consistently protesting leftists)—to the demographics who, maybe are coming here more now that the city has more name recognition, and a more genteel, suburban infrastructure and creature-comfort options than it once did.
While the folks overheard here are going to vary a bit more than the folks who offer up ripe-for-satire bon mots off of Haywood, they have some common denominators. They have real money or at least want to portray that they have real money, which is at odds with their hipster brethren, who wish to hide their wealth under Bernie Sanders tee shirts and play down their privilege with some light cultural appropriation.
They’re super into wellness, but less of the spiritual variety, and more of the optimization kind (if they’re a specific type of white man, they 100% are in this sauna at the behest of Joe Rogan). They bike or hike or medidate less for the health benefits, and more for the milestones they could hit and use as hustle bonafides, lean left but prioritize money more, love name dropping, buy into self help at an alarming rate, consider themselves smarter and more cultured than the average bear (but in somehow both a showier and less showy way than the hipsters) and there’s a good chance they consider “tech bro” or “girl boss” to be a compliment and a beleaguered, oppressed population. They’re a little harder to define, yet are massively present in certain types of outdoorsy, artistic cities across the US—Austin, Boulder, the Bay Area—that like to keep things “weird,” as long as you’re in a certain tax bracket.
I’m getting very verbose here (I got laid off two weeks ago, and have nothing but time—and apparently words—at the moment), so without further ado, here’s what I’ve overheard in the saunas of Asheville lately.
As with Overheard on Haywood Road, I try my best—but often fail—to present all of these devoid of context.
- “I’m something of a citizen of the world. I feel like I’m practically a permanent resident of the EU.” I automatically don’t trust anyone who says “The EU” in situations when “Europe” would suffice.
- This next one is an amazing conversation:
- Speaker One: I’d have to consult my team of financial consultants.
- Speaker Two: Damn, how big of a team do you have?
- Speaker One: Well, really, it’s just two women who are partners in a small firm.
- “I was the one who introduced Mick Jagger to Scientology.” At some point, I might have to devote an entire blog to this eavesdropped conversation (though, is it eavesdropping if the person is practically screaming and name-dropping in a small, enclosed space?) because it was a wild, wild ride that I only believe maybe 60% of, but still.
- “I’ve been meditating since I was a toddler, but didn’t take it seriously until recently.
- Another conversation (that I didn’t hear myself, as I’d gone into the cold plunge, but was relayed to me by a friend):
- Speaker One: I wanted to land there, because that’s where I was proposed to.
- Speaker Two: Were you engaged before?
- Speaker One: No, my waiter proposed to me after becoming obsessed with me over dinner.
- “The saunas in Iceland are so much more intense.”
- “Have you ever cold plunged in Costa Rica?” Question: Why are people of this ilk obsessed with Costa Rica?
- “In New York, there’s a real sauna etiquette.” This was said with real disdain for the apparently poor sauna etiquette here in Asheville.
- “I need to get back into day trading. It’s really an art.”
- “There’s an ancient Scandinavian word for that.” This person said this twice in two seemingly different conversations.
Thanks for listening (and proverbially sweating) along with me. Hope you enjoyed.
AshevilleExplorer 
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