Do I Have to STFU at the Gym?
I work out at my gym every day. I see the same people there all the time. I have started to talk with people who are on the same schedule as me, which I’m worried isn’t cool. There is also a woman I see, and every time I work out, we have the “eye sex.” This includes smiles and small waves. Can I take this as a sign she wants to talk? Or do I just keep it how it is?
There’s a joke my friend Nate makes when we bike together and we’re climbing a stupid hill. He leans over, looks at my miserable face, and says, “Tell me about yourself.” He’s funny! He knows people can’t resist talking about themselves. He also knows making conversation is TORTUROUS when it feels like minuscule fragments of your capillary system are being extricated from your body via your sweat. Socializing and exercising historically have been mismatched ventures. You’re winded. You might be suffering. You don’t look great. I mean, I’m sure you look so handsome and strapping, but the rest of us look like melting candles. People usually don’t want to use what little breath they have left to shoot the shit. I get your initial impulse to pursue relationships at the gym. You have stuff in common. Namely, you happen to occupy similar pinpoints in the space-time continuum. You value physical activity. You share a comparable daily schedule. You might not share a similar enthusiasm for chatting.
Little waves and small smiles are often just to acknowledge the weird experiment that is the modern gym. Facing the same direction as a bunch of people, bouncing on your own individual conveyer belts, is very strange. It’s bonkers, in terms of humanity's experience, that people have stopped lifting bags of flour and started heaving metal bars up in the air just to put them back down again. It’s surreal in the gym. A small wave is like: YEP, we’re all doing this alone together.
Danielle Hopkins, the fitness manager at the fancy-soap gym of New York, Equinox, observes a good deal of faltered social attempts. She says to avoid small talk at peak hours for busy professionals (“early morning, lunchtime”). Nothing worse than making a cranky business person mad at you.
Gyms are places of efficiency. People talk about maximizing their workouts. “Maximizing” is a word associated with profits and tax refunds, not new friends. I might be the first person to tell you this, but so many people hate the gym. We’re there so we don’t die in ten years from sloth. When people are in the middle of hating something a lot, they’re not at their most chummy. You do not have to talk to people at the gym. You should leave people alone at the gym. As for flirting: I have a warning about making the “eye sex” at the gym. Look at these photos by Sacha Goldberger, who snapped people right after they went jogging. Lots of them look very post-coital. Lots of sex eyes. Because of the nature of activity, people look all flushed and daze-eyed after working out. Proceed with a grain of sweat salt. Hopkins says it's chill to flirt if you’ve been eyeing each other for a while. "Just be careful. Sometimes the fantasy is much better than real life! Nothing worse than having to cancel your gym membership because you need to avoid someone you dated.” As you may know, and the kind folks at Equinox will tell you this, it is completely impossible to cancel gym memberships. Flirting is a risky choice.
BUT, HEY, it sounds like you want to make friends. Let’s talk about that! There’s a difference between exercising and fitness activities. Pickup games or rec leagues or sweat cults like CrossFit are supposed to be social. With the first two, people are there to enjoy themselves as well as exert. With the latter one, who knows really, but they all seem to be highly bonded due to a shared love of strained tendons.
And some practical advice: If you’re looking to see if people want to be friendly, check the headphone situation. Does he have headphones on? Let him be. Is she wearing only one earbud? That’s a small sign that she’s willing to hear a person talk to her. No headphones? WHO IS THIS PERSON WHO CAN WORK OUT WITHOUT MUSIC? That’s not a person—you found a robot.
Are you skeptical about whether you have to do something? Send your leading questions to maggie_lange@gq.com. It’s a weekly thing!
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