The funny thing about exercise in Dublin is that girls don’t do it.

Yesterday, I stopped halfway through my daily jog for a stretch break. I lifted my left leg up to fit my foot between the railings of the wooden walkway beside the river, breathing in as I leaned forward. The stretch passed through the back of my calf and shivered up my hamstring.

My iPod had magically shuffled, in the way iPods do, to one of my favorite workout songs. I counted to 30 and switched legs, savoring my favorite part of the running ritual.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

I could feel the muscles getting loose, getting ready to hit the pavement again.

And then a voice broke through “Beautiful Day” to ruin mine.

I took one of my earbuds out, annoyed. A stout, older woman at the end of the walkway was looking at me.

“Yeah, I’ve just been running,” I said.

Her painted eyebrows fell from comically high arches to swoop together in the middle of her forehead. She looked quickly from side to side.

“Has someone been following you? Do you need the garda?”

“Um…no. No need to call the police,” I said. “I’ve just, you know…been on a long run. Just stretching now.”

“Oh….you were just…running?” she asked.

“Yeah…um, you know, running, just enjoying the weather,” I said. “Thanks.”

I was a little insulted: Granted, I’m no marathoner. But I’m more than able to enjoy a long run without my face turning green.

But I realized she wasn’t enquiring about my health. She was actually concerned I had been running away from someone. This seemed really odd. Even if she was past her running years, surely she’d seen other people running at some point?

Then it hit me. In my weeks of running in the city centre, I was, but for very, very rare exceptions, the only one. People aren’t hiding in the gyms, either. When I go in after class ends at 5 p.m., it’s never hard to find a spot at one of the four treadmills or two ellipticals.

And if there are people, most of them are men. If there are girls, they come in pairs, pedal away on the bikes for 10 minutes and then leave without having broken a sweat.

This is a huge change for me. At MU, it’s a part of my daily routine to follow cardio and weights at the Rec with a yoga or Pilates class. I’ve even been known to skip class to squeeze in a workout on a really busy day.

At MU, there are constant environmental reminders to exercise, whether it’s girls wearing Nike shorts and trainers in class or people running around Stank in the evenings. The culture of exercise sweeps you up and draws you in — you’re constantly surrounded by visual motivation.

In Dublin, girls never wear athletic clothing to school. The stylish Topshop bags they carry to class don’t allow any room for running shoes. There are no reminders like at MU, no impetuses or jolts that exercise is something one should do.

During my crunches yesterday, I began to think about why there’s such a large cultural difference. Everyone knows exercise is good for you, that you should do it. So why aren’t there more runners on a gorgeous day? Why am I never waiting for the one set of 4 kg. weights?

It finally hit me when I was walking home. In a way, being in shape and having the right proportions has become a 21st-century addition to the American dream. Women, in particular, have been indoctrinated. We will never be perfect enough. There is always something to fix, a part of us that needs to be smaller or tighter or firmer.

But in Ireland and in the UK, it’s more realistic. Girls who simply aren’t built to be a size 4 are comfortable with that. Most girls — and guys — consider a UK size 8 or 10 (a 6 or 8 in the US) to be ideal, and in magazines, sizes below this are actually called “a bit too skinny.”

That’s not to say girls here are fat — they’re not at all. They’re just a bit more natural, a bit more real in some ways. Having curves in the States has become such a polite euphemism for being fat that, to some degree, the ideal has shifted to an almost rectangular figure that most girls past puberty just don’t have. Here, being curvy means you can fill out a bra, that you’ve got a small waist and actual hips and a bit of a butt: the traditional hourglass figure. And here, that’s sexy.

Part of me is going to miss this mindset when I head home in six weeks. I like that women here are honest and happy with themselves. I’ve even become a bit more relaxed with myself. I no longer feel like I have to perform a mental critique of myself before heading out for the night. If I look good, I look good. I don’t think about how much better I could look if I’d just spent a little longer on the treadmill the day before.