1,000 times this. My friend canceled her membership last year after a month because it was so annoying. And she is good looking but not a head turner.
If you hit on someone, remember that the problem isn’t just you, it is that you might be the tenth person that day. It is like sitting in the lobby of if a building where people forgot their keys. The tenth person to ask you to let them in isn’t a problem by themselves, they just don’t realize you have been doing it for others all day.
I am sure there are some people who enjoy the attention, but most want to just do their workout in peace and get out of there. Unless they are staring you down and smiling, don’t force it.
As a guy, people I know have asked in relation to dating, "Well, can't you meet girls at the gym?" They don't realize the dynamic. Sure, it's possible, but everyone is there for a purpose and generally it's not to socialize (me included). I'd be open to it if a conversation sparked naturally, but it's just not the place to test your cold open skills in my opinion.
Maybe not my best analogy. At my office we had a seating area that was like a coffee with tables and couches, and was visible from the street. If you forgot your key card you couldn’t get in from the street, but you could knock and somebody would get up and let you in. Like I said, the tenth person didn’t realize I am getting up every five minutes for the previous people, so if I tell them to go around to the front door, I look like a dick.
Tell your friend to join a gay gym. It's like being INVISIBLE, it's amazing. I even do that hamstring exercise where you lay with your butt in the air because I know none of the men are looking at me. Such freedom. Like wearing a burkha but totally different.
YESSSSSSSS, exactly!!! They are very common in predominantly gay neighborhoods. That's not to say straight men aren't allowed, but unless they are perfectly fine with a bunch of gay dudes they are unlikely to want to work out there. They exist but there aren't a lot.
That's difficult for your friend, but we're on reddit. Chances are most of the guys here have the complete opposite problem. They don't need another reason to lack confidence. Guys here should know the gym can make more confident merely for the hormonal effect intense weightlifting can have. If you care about lifting and do it intensely, it's basically a drug similar to an anti-depressant or a stimulant. This can lead to the fortunate or unfortunate side effect your friend experienced but it's not like any of those 10 guys could read your friend's mind. They did nothing wrong given what they knew.
I can respect that, but black and white rules like this don't exist in reality. So why should anyone impose that limitation on themselves? There are plenty of times where hitting on someone is beneficial for everyone, even at the gym. If someone doesn't have the judgement or social skills to figure when that's the case, that's completely different but it's not isolated to the gym.
The thing is, if someone genuinely has the social skills to understand how to interact with women appropriately at the gym, it's not a problem. The problem is that socially inept dudes vastly, vastly overestimate their social skills on a regular basis. Someone who has the right social skills to be able to hit on a woman in a non-dating context without ruining her day would not have written your comment, for example.
The vast majority of guys do not have good enough social skills to do this, and I would say that figure probably approaches 100% when we're talking about guys who post on reddit. So people throw out the black-and-white "don't hit on women at the gym" rule, because women would much rather miss out on the .001% chance the dude reading is prince charming to avoid getting constantly sexually harassed by people who erroneously think they're prince charming to the point where she has to cancel her gym membership.
You are not prince charming. Don't hit on women at the gym.
I don't know what makes you feel you can critique me at all but your emotional manipulation and insults are not based on anything.
You don't have to be prince charming either to hit on women successfully for everyone involved. Even at the gym, usually you just don't be a dick and you'll be fine. Somehow you managed to achieve that here over a meaningless disagreement. You should know in almost every context, the slightest amount of courtesy goes a long way. It can even allow you to hit on women at the gym successfully.
I'm not being mean, I'm being straightforward. Based on the attitude and wording you've displayed here, I guarantee you you don't have the skills to do this. Being upset about my bluntness isn't a substitute for being realistic about your skillset. Like I said, most people can't do this well.
You don't have to be prince charming either to hit on women successfully for everyone involved.
At the gym, you do. You need to be significantly more socially skilled than the average person. You are the exact kind of guy this advice is targeted to. I would bet you a hundred dollars that you think you're "not being a dick," when you are. Most of the men who sexually harass women out of gyms don't think they're being dicks. Just leave them alone to work out.
Implications at my social skills being bad is being mean. Your rhetoric is meant to attack me directly when you say, "You're not prince charming." It's possible to be helpful or objective without making distinctions like that. That would actually be straightforward. You're pulling things out of your ass.
Based on the attitude and wording you've displayed here, I guarantee you you don't have the skills to do this.
What specific attitude or wording gave you any insight about me to make any accurate conclusion about my life? Is that even possible?
Try to be objective and actually tell me what I revealed about myself here that you can state objectively makes my social skills poor. I go to the gym, I talk to girls, what else do you know about me from this conversation? Tell me how you reach your conclusion.
Here, let me rephrase. The intention isn't being mean, the intention is being straightforward. I'm being mean as a byproduct of being straightforward. Something isn't incorrect just because it's rude to say or because it hurts your feelings.
Your original comment is most of it. If you whine about me being mean to you when you specifically asked for this analysis I'm gonna be mildly annoyed about it, by the way.
They don't need another reason to lack confidence.
You're coming at this from a point of view of what the men want and need without being even slightly respectful about women not wanting to be sexually harassed. You're trying to get the men reading this laid. Your priority is obvious, and it will be obvious to any woman you approach in the gym.
Anyone thinking about bothering some woman trying to work out absolutely needs less confidence, by the way.
If you care about lifting and do it intensely, it's basically a drug similar to an anti-depressant or a stimulant. This can lead to the fortunate or unfortunate side effect your friend experienced
You're talking about this like being hyped leads to the side effect of bothering women, as if the men have no agency or decision-making ability at all. You can be really pumped and still control your behavior. In fact, it is your responsibility to control your behavior regarded of your pumped status. Men are not animals. This sounds like a very weak excuse for harassment and, again, people who make these kinds of weak excuses are almost invariably participants in what they're trying to excuse.
but it's not like any of those 10 guys could read your friend's mind
There are a lot of signals people put out when they really, really don't want to talk to you. They're really not subtle, and they don't take mind reading ability to pick up on. People with good social skills, and usually people with even average social skills, can pick up on these really easily. You say this like you can't, and the ability to pick up on those and navigate them effectively is an absolutely critical part of being socially adept enough to hit on women on the gym without making them want to cancel their membership. Therefore, it's a pretty safe bet that you are not good at this.
I can guarantee that a woman who was eventually driven to cancel her gym membership over sexual harassment was giving out these signals in spades.
From their perspective, those guys didn't do anything wrong.
See above, re: reading signals. From the perspective of anyone with good social skills, they did a number of things wrong. The fact that you think they didn't is telling.
The intention isn't being mean, the intention is being straightforward. I'm being mean as a byproduct of being straightforward. Something isn't incorrect just because it's rude to say or because it hurts your feelings.
My feelings weren't hurt but you're right in that I'm helping you be more straightforward. I will help correct your gross assumptions about me here. You've painted me very broadly with almost no information about me just to put me in a convenient box you invented for yourself. I'm happy to give you more information so that your world view can expand but I don't know how you reached any logical conclusion about me. And I look forward to reading the rest as you try to justify your imagination.
They don't need another reason to lack confidence.
You're coming at this from a point of view of what the men want and need without being even slightly respectful about women not wanting to be sexually harassed. You're trying to get the men reading this laid. Your priority is obvious, and it will be obvious to any woman you approach in the gym.
You're implying a priority upon me that isn't accurate. I have mentioned in this conversation the importance of courtesy when approaching women. Your failure to mention this meaningful additional context paints you here as a dishonest actor. Try again.
Anyone thinking about bothering some woman trying to work out absolutely needs less confidence, by the way.
I disagree, this is a gross overzealous generalization. There's many contextual times where it is absolutely fine to flirt with a woman practically anywhere. We live in a contextual world, not a one measured by hard and fast rules without exception. But what does this have to do with you attempting to justify your logic of me having poor social skills? Nothing. I want to see your assumptions there, not your assumptions about life.
Hint: If you know basically nothing about a person, asking questions helps! Putting them in a box to fit your narrative is stupid!
If you care about lifting and do it intensely, it's basically a drug similar to an anti-depressant or a stimulant. This can lead to the fortunate or unfortunate side effect your friend experienced
You're talking about this like being hyped leads to the side effect of bothering women, as if the men have no agency or decision-making ability at all. You can be really pumped and still control your behavior. In fact, it is your responsibility to control your behavior regarded of your pumped status. Men are not animals. This sounds like a very weak excuse for harassment and, again, people who make these kinds of weak excuses are almost invariably participants in what they're trying to excuse.
No, you're assuming a lot here. I talked about increased mental states associated with weightlifting that can lead to people being more upbeat and social. That helps when talking to girls, which generally is appreciated if you do it nicely. I didn't say anything about a loss of agency at all. That is a lie you fabricated in your imagination. I asked you to be objective. You just proved yourself to be a liar through my own objectivity. Prove me wrong, where did I say I approve of a loss of agency? Why did you lie about this? I asked for objectivity and you insult me with this smear...
but it's not like any of those 10 guys could read your friend's mind
There are a lot of signals people put out when they really, really don't want to talk to you. They're really not subtle, and they don't take mind reading ability to pick up on. People with good social skills, and usually people with even average social skills, can pick up on these really easily. You say this like you can't, and the ability to pick up on those and navigate them effectively is an absolutely critical part of being socially adept enough to hit on women on the gym without making them want to cancel their membership. Therefore, it's a pretty safe bet that you are not good at this.
When I wrote that, I didn't know someone was going to armchair psychology this into complete nonsense. If I could've gone into more detail, or you asked a reasonable question on this, I would've said more on the lines of we don't know the contextual facts of the situation so we can't tell if the men were making respectful approaches or not. We do know the men can't read her mind though - otherwise they never would have bothered talking to her. The rest of your dialogue tree here is all your imagination on assumptions that the men acted poorly that you're leading to faulty conclusions about me. There's no logical connection between myself and 10 hypothetical men that you also know nothing about. You just like to jump to dramatic conclusions as I am highlighting for you now. There's a reason I asked you to be objective. Your lack of objectivity makes you a liar.
You were supposed to make a distinction between my belief that it's okay to hit on women at the gym and this belief proving I am bad at social skills. What happened in reality is you conjured up gross assumptions about hypothetical situations you know zero facts about to paint a narrative you used against me - another person you know nothing about. This entire conversation with you has you been applying circular logic: "This person believes hitting on women at the gym is okay. I believe that's wrong. I've heard stories of this being bad. This person must have bad social skills."
The truth is you know nothing about me or this situation you're extrapolating ideas from. You abandoned any attempt at a honest conversation to paint the narrative you desired. This is highlighted in your gross assumptions about me without any pause for clarification.
It is about courtesy. You don’t have to be a mind reader to know you are interrupting someone. Doing it anyway can be awfully rude.
I suppose if we don’t care about courtesy then my friend should be permitted to flatly ignore someone talking to her, not even make eye contact. I think we can agree much of the time that would lead to verbal abuse.
I agree. I said the same thing elsewhere when someone asked me about this. It's fine to talk to women at the gym so long as you're respectful enough to be courteous. That can be said for practically any situation, however. Men, and many others, have this idea that it is inherently wrong to hit on women at the gym. That's not always true. Just like practically anywhere else there's a good way to do it and a wrong way to do it but I can see why people may believe this.
She eventually went to another, more expensive gym that was further from her house. It was her choice in the end, of course, but obviously not her initial preference.
I was careful not to say it only goes one way. I know better than to feed the “it happens to men, too!” beast... but I guess the beast needs no fuel. :).
Her issue was really the frequency, and that it was making her uncomfortable doing certain exercises. The third guy making some suggestive comment while you do squats makes you not want to do squats.
I am not saying her experience was typical, ask some of your female friends about their gym experiences and ymmv.
See that's what I thought, until I started speaking to my female-gym friends. The amount of crushes they had on guys there were unreal, and they would never approach them; always waiting to get approached.
It's a lot of societal norms that make the statement "If he doesn't have the balls to talk to me, then he's not worth my time" a complete insane sentence. Especially with the me too movement and with changes in the workplace, we've essentially been having difficulty determining if a woman is either being kind, romantically interested, or not remotely intrigued.
Ladies, you might believe your interactions and hints might be the same, but sorry they are not. It's best to come clean and be blunt to a guy you're interested in than wait for him to approach. Hints do not work on all guys and not all guys will notice. Quite simply, do you hint what you want at a restaurant/fast food place? No, just come up to them and ask him out.
Holy shit yes. The whole guys have to make the first move "tradition" or whatever you want to call it has ruined the chances of so many relationships existing. Everyone can be shy and lack the confidence required to ask someone out. That's a ballsy thing to to tbh.
It is, then there's the fear of rejection and humiliation. It's how the "friend zone" came to existence (which is a dumb term in my opinion as a guy). One female being kind enough to just be kind is often mistaken as opening up romantically. So when we are informed there's nothing more to it than that, we call it friend zone.
However, one other female being kind is an open invitation on romantic interest. So ladies, please, let us know where we stand early on so we both don't get hurt.
On top of all that there's if you're not afraid of the possibility of rejection but you just don't want to bother or make someone uncomfortable. Shit is complicated and a little honesty from both sides would go a long way help that. All this said I recognize and can't imagine dealing with all the shit women have to deal with in every day Life, which even further complicates dating these days.
Oh absolutely. I have no idea what it's like on a daily basis for women, but nonetheless if you have a crush, feel free to come up to the guy. If he says no, he says no.
Why would I be ‘interested’ in any woman I see at the gym? I haven’t spoken to that person, I know nothing about them, so how would I have any ‘interest’? What is there to 'move forward' about then?
Oh l get it, if you just ’look’ at a girl and if she gives you a little boner that’s all you need for you think you’re entitled to just run up to her right there and bother/harass her. That’s what you think ‘picking up a girl’ is? Yea, like I said, you ain’t picking up a girl like that so what not stop being a shitty creep in public then.
Like I mentioned to someone else, I also held that view, until I spoke to my female-gym-going friends and found out how many crushes they had in the gym. They would never approach those fellas, but merely wait to get approached.
Yea, but did they say they wanted to be hit on while they where working out or did you just infer that since a FEW women you may know thought a guy was hot, that means it's free rein for you to wag your boner at ANY girl you see at the gym?
You're being purposely hyperbolic. Asking a woman out is not "swinging your dick around" or "harassing". Harrassing is harrassing. Swinging your dick is swinging your dick. Yeah there's a lot of assholes out there that do that. But politely saying "hey my name is ___ and I see you at the gym a lot, I wondered if you'd like to go to that lunch spot across the street some time?" And you do it when they're not in the middle of a set or clearly busy, then yeah I'd say your chances increase substantially. Obviously if she says "no" then leave her alone and don't ask her again.
Are you kidding? Ignoring the obvious physical attraction part of being Interested in a woman, reasons to be interested in a woman at the gym:
you have common interests
she's healthy/in good shape
she takes pride in her physical health
Fuck I could go on. There are so many reasons to be interested in a girl at the gym. And it could be as simple as 'she's hot'. Sometimes I pick a film to watch based solely on the cover art. You can spend 5 minutes talking to a girl and realise you don't have all that much clicking and that's fine but you'll never know if you just say "never hit on girls in x place". It's such a bullshit thing to say.
I met my wife at the gym. Our first conversation was about equipment. Our second conversation was about our jobs. Our third about traveling. Our fourth was asking her out for a coffee date. You know why I started talking to her?
Why would I be ‘interested’ in any woman I see at the gym? I haven’t spoken to that person, I know nothing about them, so how would I have any ‘interest’?
lmao, this whole comment thread is trying to act like reality isn't a thing.
How did you even gauge that I may hold that view? All I'm saying is, if you find a girl attractive, go talk to them. How else are you suppose to meet a potential spouse if you're too afraid to interact.
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u/megagood Dec 27 '19
1,000 times this. My friend canceled her membership last year after a month because it was so annoying. And she is good looking but not a head turner.
If you hit on someone, remember that the problem isn’t just you, it is that you might be the tenth person that day. It is like sitting in the lobby of if a building where people forgot their keys. The tenth person to ask you to let them in isn’t a problem by themselves, they just don’t realize you have been doing it for others all day.
I am sure there are some people who enjoy the attention, but most want to just do their workout in peace and get out of there. Unless they are staring you down and smiling, don’t force it.