so there was this guy in the gym . . .
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So, I had a fairly bothersome series of interactions with a guy at the gym yesterday and today. It started yesterday when I was sitting up between sets of bench press. Random guy comes over and taps my shoulder - starting off poorly right off the bat. I do NOT like to be touched by people I don't know and haven't given my permission to. So he taps me, and suddenly he's like a foot away from me hanging over my bar and grinning at me. I took out one headphone and he proceeds to ask me if I'm working out to get a man. WTF?! I said no, I already have one (I don't wear my rings at the gym bc barbells). He looks all disappointed and says "Oh, you have a boyfriend?" Then starts trying to small talk me. I'm a polite person most of the time so I smiled and didn't chew him out like I wanted to, but it pissed me off the rest of the time. Why should I be there to get a man?! Super rude and sexist.
So I continue my workout, and he wanders around the gym randomly doing a set of this and that, waving at me and continuing to try to talk at times. I get through my workout and head to the child care room to pick up my daughter. He follows me back there and sticks his head in the door, looks around the childcare room, and makes some inane comment about the room. He does not have a child, there's no reason for him to be back there. He turned and went into the bathroom across the hall after a min but I was bothered by him following me into a room where he had no reason to be. I said something to the childcare attendant about him following me back there just bc I was weirded out, then left.
So today, I pull into the parking lot and he's sitting outside smoking. He yells hello across the parking lot, waves, and asks me my name. Stupidly, I give him my first name instead of telling him I wasn't interested in talking. He compliments my daughter's cuteness. I continue on, start my warm ups, and next thing I know, he's hanging around the squat rack waving and trying to talk to me. It was so distracting trying to keep an eye on him bc he kept wandering across the deadlift platform that's part of the rack, and he tried talking to me as I'm gettin ready to squat 165. I finally told him I was working out and didn't want to talk, and he wandered off again. I cut my workout short bc he was creeping me out, go to pick up my daughter, and the childcare attendant tells me he's stopped in at least twice looking around the childcare room before I got in, apparently looking for us.
So at that point I decided to talk to the gym owners bc I'm feeling skeeved out and the gym is my me-time. As soon as I told them I was feeling uncomfortable bc of another member, they described him and asked if it was him. Apparently his dad routinely drops him off and lets him just wander around the gym for hours--like the gym is his daycare or something. The owners were very responsive and said they believe he may be a bit simple, but that they would address it immediately bc they don't want their members feeling uncomfortable. By the time I got my daughter packed up and we left, the owner was on the phone addressing it with the guy. I am so appreciative of having a supportive gym atmosphere! Even if the guy is developmentally delayed and not just creepy, he needs to know it's not ok to touch strangers, creep around the kids area, and hit on people who are trying to work out.0 -
The last time I went to the rec center, there was about 15 people there including this very elderly man on the elliptical. He caught my eye, because he was moving so incredibly slowly. Like barely crawling on the thing.
So, I started my workout and about half way through and suddenly this elderly man slumps over the elliptical and collapses on the control panel.
Everyone got super still and quiet and we're all looking at each other like "Omg? Did that guy just die?"
I'm not sure if anyone else there was certified first aid, but I am and was the first to step up. I ran over and tried to get his attention, see if he was conscious, etc. No dice, so I yelled to the nearest person and told them to call 911 and get the rec manager.
It took me and two other people to get him off the elliptical, he wasn't breathing so I started CPR, and I'm pretty sure I broke one or more of his ribs. (yeeeeahh...CPR isn't as glamorous as TV makes it sound
) The paramedics finally arrived and took him away.
Fast forward several months, these people arrive at my office with this massive fruit/flower basket. They were family members of the man. Apparently he survived, they never said what happened, just that he was still in the hospital and that this was the 'last straw' for his independent living.9 -
jerky creep who clearly can't get many people to stand still and be tiresomed by him, kept making eye contact and nodding/smiling a few weeks ago . . . and then damn me if he didn't come over while i was BETWEEN SETS in the rack, and try to impose these rubber wraparound strips on me.
i think he carries them around in his shorts pocket as a conversation starter
which, now i think about what body part that puts them right up close to, just ick. he had this schtick he was all ready to go with . . . something about how you wrap them round the bar and now you have a nice smooth squishy section of barbell to grip.
now that it's all over with, i can't get over the sheer off-ness of walking into somebody's space and starting to mess around with a bar they're already using, unasked. but at the time i just caught a brief moment where it was fairly organic for me to speak up, and said 'i like the knurling. i don't want to cover it up' and he copped a hurt snit about me not wanting his Clever Invention and faded back into the wallpaper again.
good.1 -
[quote="canadianlbs;c-40861126"
now that it's all over with, i can't get over the sheer off-ness of walking into somebody's space and starting to mess around with a bar they're already using, unasked. [/quote]
Wow, what would make anyone think that is okay?
There's a guy at my gym who is a regular and is almost always there at the same time as me. He's a nice enough guy and lifts some impressive weight but seems pretty full of himself. The other day he walked by and loudly exclaimed, "whoa."
One of the other regulars asked him what was going on.
He responded that he had looked in the mirror as he was walking by and seen this really ripped guy and was admiring him when he realized that it was himself that he was seeing in the mirror. And he then loudly exclaimed "I look good."
I just had to laugh.3 -
And he then loudly exclaimed "I look good."
lol. i would have too.
i had this encounter on thursday which - i'm getting pretty slow at processing this stuff. i guess i was so focused on the crappiness of my deadlifts that day that i havne't gotten around to being annoyed by her until i had a good deadlift session in the books to replace it. but it came to me today.
this was a woman. 63-year-old woman. she told me, not that i asked. and then a moment later she asked me mine and i told her. now that i think about it she might have been ticked off to discover i'm not all that much younger than her. makes her supposed stellarness look less impressive, etc.
she was on the cable towers near me while i was deadlifting, doing a lot of half-squat pulldown type stuff and similar fanciness which i didn't pay much attention to. and in between them a lot of . . . performative kind of bruce-lee-type wannabe moves. you got the feeling she was doing them less as a workout and more as a way of showcasing something or other, somehow.
i wouldn't have noticed her except she remarked on my deadlift. and then she remarked on it again. and then i paused to tell her what the plates all added up to, and s he remarked once again. then she bruce-lee'd off with her silly slow-mo kicks and 'hah!' breath noises and fancy-pants hand gestures until she had circled round and came back to the cables. did a few more squatty pulldowns, accosted me AGAIN after the next deadlift to say even more. and then damn me if she didn't jump in like she thought she was the cutest thing on the floor and grab hold of my bar. all crouched down in another half-squat.
i mentioned i'm slow nowadays. instead of telling her to get her hands the *kitten* off my bar, i thought she was serious and tried to explain some of the most basic cues. and told her NOT to just try and pull 130 pounds off the floor. she didn't bother to listen longer than it took to say 'i just want to try', and of course the bar went nowhere and we had a little session about her amazement at how heavy it was and so on and so on and so on.
i said 'well, it's because you're not using your hips', but she wasn't really interested. more bruce lee moves in my face while she tells me she doens't care about her lower body or something or other, she just wants nice shoulders - and then she jumps on my bar AGAIN. same thing. i tried to tell her here's how you set up a deadlift, because again i hadn't yet realised she was just flapping her gums and waving her dick and showing off.
it came to me today while i was putting my street shoes back on and i found myself retroactively really pissed off. mostly because it was way too late for me to say 'you're not serious here. so get the hell away from my bar and go pose somewhere else, would you please.'6 -
Lots of these interactions are combinations of funny, weird, and uncomfortable. As much as I love(so much) my home gym they kind of make me want to be able to people watch. Only a little though. Nobody makes me wear shoes in my home gym.1
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I didn't realize how spoiled I was getting at my little powerlifting gym. Like we might be ridiculous, but it's an inclusive, supportive, accommodating ridiculous.
Then today happened....
I was doing push-ups by an emergency exit, because I couldn't find any non standard walkway space that wasn't being taken by flirting/loitering.
There was a man with a better bun game than me... and given it was bench day, that's saying something.
I used the preloaded fixed ez bars for a lot of my barbell stuff because I didn't have room or barbell. I did ab stuff mid workout because people were everywhere. And just people everywhere wouldn't bug me.... but there were more men checking out their butts than I have ever seen in my life. There were girls just sitting on benches talking to their boyfriends or perspective boyfriends.
But the icing on the cake was this girl who came in while I was Trying to find a bench and bar towards the end.... and I honestly saw her do 1 rep of something right before I left. But otherwise she would grab something...and go to one end of the gym with it, and stand, and dawdle, and huff and puff and sigh... and get in the way.... and then pick it back up, and put it away and go to some piece of equipment and huff and puff and growl and sigh.... like I dunno wtf she was trying to do... I would say just attract male attention... but the growls would indicate just crazy
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Some guy was on the hyperextension stand bending BACKWARDS all the way (with his hamstrings resting on the pad), with a fixed barbell in his hands that he held way below his head when his head pointed down, and then he brought the barbell to his thighs while swinging upright, then extending the barbell above his head again while he went backwards. I do NOT know what to make of that...1
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😂 😂 😂 😂0
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I saw a guy back-squatting 225 lb while standing on a BOSU ball (the flat part) !! Is he crazy??0
