Why Getting Hit on at the Gym Is Actually the Worst
The other day, a friend of mine posted a Facebook status about getting hit on at the gym. She wasn’t flattered, she was frustrated. She went to the gym to work out, not to have a stranger comment on her body in an attempt to engage her in conversation while she was covered in sweat and panting for breath. The comments on her Facebook post by a number of females echoed her frustrations. “Can I live?” was asked more than once.
This got me thinking: Do women ever really want to get hit on at the gym? I decided to ask a bunch of my female friends and coworkers that very question. The collective answer? A loud, resounding “Noooooooooo.” So, while I’m sure there are some rom-com-worthy love stories that have been born out of serendipitous side-by-side burpee workouts, and obviously this sample of females does not account for the entire female population, it still seems this PSA is worth making: Usually, getting hit on at the gym is actually the worst. Below, four crowd-sourced reasons why, gathered from female gym-goers in my life.
1. It’s an interruption to quality me time.
For many people, their time at the gym is the only time they get to themselves for the ENTIRE day. So when someone wanders over to them, forcing them to pause their masterfully crafted playlist and take out their headphones to answer the lame lead-in of, “Are you an athlete? You look like an athlete,” (yes, this is a line one friend says she has gotten multiple times), they’re interrupting that person’s only me time they get all damn day. #Rude
2. It’s distracting.
Fact: It’s hard to get back into beast mode — the only mode one friend said she wants to be in at the gym — when the stranger who just sparked conversation with you by giving you unsolicited form advice before awkwardly asking you out is now doing bench presses six feet away from you. Even harder when that person has posted up on the stationary bike next to you to chat, which yes, apparently does happen.
3. It’s presumptuous.
As one of my guy friends — who noted that women seem to get hit on more often than guys do at the gym — said, oftentimes, in his opinion, “Guys do it because girls at the gym are fit and in tight clothes. Not good, but pretty simple reasoning.” But, in sentences that shouldn’t really need to by typed: Just because a woman is wearing spandex shorts at the gym does not mean she is trying to attract the closest suitor. It just means that chafing is real.
4. It’s awkward.
If you have a gym membership, you are probably locked into a contract. And you probably go to the same gym every day. So after someone comments on your body or asks you out, you will be seeing them again — probably tomorrow. And, unless you are both the most charming people alive, it will be awkward. And the gym, a place where grunting abounds and people sweat through their clothing, does not need any awkward-fuel added to its fire.
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