“Are you looking for the Easter Bunny?” “Are you girls lady Marines?” “Are you insane?!” Over the years the Gym Buddies and I have gotten a lot of weird comments from people at the gym. Granted, we do a lot of weird things at the gym so it’s not like it comes out of nowhere. The funny comments are my favorites – we’ll laugh for days over a great one-liner. The educational comments are great too; I can’t even tell you how much I’ve learned from the kindness of strangers. But there are a few comments that can be pretty annoying. Here are our Top 10 DisLikes: (And yes, we’ve gotten each one of these in real life.)
1. “That’s my weight bench. Can’t you see I marked it with my water bottle?” Sure I saw it! And I chose to ignore it! Because the gym is super busy right now and you are not a dog so please don’t mark your territory. I’m happy to share it with you and I’ll get out of your way ASAP but you don’t get to claim everything in a 20-foot radius as “yours.”
2. “You look very muscular; don’t you ever wish you could have a little dancer’s body?” First, thanks for noticing my muscles – I work very hard for those. Second, I think the tall, slim “dancer’s body” is mostly born and not made. Although you don’t need to have a typical dancer’s bod to be an amazing dancer, as evidenced by the wide range of girls on this season of So You Think You Can Dance. Third, I spent a significant amount of my life wishing I looked other than I do but where did that get me? Nowhere good. So no, I don’t.
3. “Heh, heh, hope fatty over there doesn’t break the leg machine, amiright?” No you’re not right. You’re rude. Fat jokes are never funny to me. I think it’s awesome that people of all sizes work out at my gym. Although I do hope someone breaks the leg machine because that thing is a hazard to life and limb.
4. “You smell nice.” Please don’t stand close enough to me to smell me. Ever.
5. “I hope you have someone special in your life because they will really appreciate all that.” Said while eyeing us up and down for several awkward minutes. It was actually followed with, “I hope you don’t think it’s creepy that I’ve been watching you.” Well it wasn’t creepy until you said that. Everybody looks, I get that. But you don’t need to say it. And please don’t do the full body scan either.
