Because I needed to comment on this: I don't know what kind of gym you go to but I'm guessing that there was at least one of these guys who wandered back to the free weight area, stood around looking confused for a few moments, then grabbed a dumbbell off the rack, sat down sideways on the bench and started doing bicep curls. I feel very confident in this statement.
I go to the gym 5-6 times a week, and until I read this, I forgot how painful the next 3 weeks will be at the gym. Fortunately, most of the NYR's (New Year's Resolutioners) will give up in 2.5 weeks.
Isn't it more than a little douchy to be deriding people who are trying to better themselves and just don't know how? I mean, fatties are the demon's spawn, but people trying to lose weight are massive inconveniences? Maybe it's me, but I just work around them for a few weeks, it quickly drops off, and frequently there are a few good new members who stick with it. Try, I don't know, engaging one of them in conversation next time to correct their bad habits? Did all of you enter the gym for the first time magically knowing all the nuances?
I took some cold medication in the middle of the night and DEFINITELY should not have driven to work this morning. Jesus, what a trip. I'm still kind of out of it. And now I'm staring down the barrel of... holy shit. 257 new emails. Fuck me in half.
My issue isn't with people bettering themselves. I'm all for it. And how do you know whether or not I 'engage' people? Oh, you don't. Two weeks ago, I saw a girl whom is very overweight, but damn she's trying, and offered to spot for her. I'm courteous to those around me, regardless of weight or experience. I expect the same courtesy in return. If that makes me douchy - guilty as charged. My issue is the complete lack of courtesy - not returning weights, tying up machines for a long time while chatting to their buddies, not wiping things down, and just generally wandering around assuming since they're 'new' the typical rules followed by people whom go to the gym regularly (though there are certainly rude people in this category as well) try to follow - because they understand that other people are also using the gym at the same time. Do you go to the gym? If so, I would think you would understand the above. If it doesn't bother you, more power to you. Lack of courtesy happens to bother me.
I don't, and didn't claim to. I quoted you but offered a general response to the frequently-cited complaint about people who don't know what they're doing. Yep, I agree with that completely. It doesn't take a long-term affiliation with a gym to know you put shit away and get out of the way when you're done with equipment. I think the confusion was that I quoted the last post in a series: my response wasn't entirely directed at you, it was directed at the sentiment that you replied to and seemed to agree with, which was someone who was "confused" or doesn't "know what the fuck [they're] doing" should be derided. Confused and not knowing is not the same as discourteous.
This is an excellent point, and one I need to remember from time to time. I hate going to the gym (but I eat like a retard, so I have to), and sometimes my impatience - which has nothing to do with anyone but me - gets the better of me.
1,155... The number of miles I drove between 12/22 and yesterday. It's a damn good thing I love spending time with family. Not to mention that I'm driving down to Maryland tomorrow to go hunting for the weekend, so add on another 570 for that trip. By the time Sunday rolls around, I'm going to want to sit in a car about as much as I'm going to want to sit in a campfire. Hope all you guys had a great NYE. From what I saw as I glossed over this thread, there was definitely some drinking going on Monday night.
Jesus Christ, guys, if we can't sit around and pretend that we are better-looking, larger-endowed and most importantly more intelligent than anybody who does not know the finer details of our own little corners of society, what the fuck are we going to do?
YEah, we can do both, but somebody else can wahoo the PUA's. I simply could not listen to the fucking garbage on that second website for another second. They're just complete fucking LIARS, the end. Preaching that they have some sort of perfect "system" that always works, and this "system" involves things that are exclusively creepy, stupid or laughably pitiful. I mean, how much can a sane person read about how a "quaick squirt" of cologne is all it takes to seal that easy win? Are these people fucking demented? Anyways, I have much worse to rant about: after not being able to work without tears in my eyes, I drove to the hospital, walked down ten flights of parking garage stairs (elevator under repair, of course) to get told I have a full-on fractured tailbone. Can't cast it, no painkillers, just sit there and take it for EIGHT. TO TEN. FUCKING. WEEKS. To my joy, I found out through the shackled tyranny of socialized healthcare that I full-on snapped the motherfucker in a horrible tobogganing injury. That explains the wretched agony that occurs whenever I sneeze, talk or breath, it does not explain how I will get by for the next couple months not being able to bend over without breaking out into insane laughing fits from the pain. Then I walked back across the street to enjoy ten more flights of stairs, this time going up. To answer your question NO, this is not a lot of fun.
These "nuances" are the following: -Put equipment back where you found it when you're done. -Wipe your sweat puddles off of the workout benches. -Dont fill up a large water bottle at a drinking fountain with a line of people behind you. -Dont falsely monopolize something you're not using like putting a shirt or towel on a weight machine when you're using a different one. -Dont grunt loudly and obnoxiously. -Dont leave your stuff on the benches of the locker room when there are clearly vacant lockers that will easily fill your belongings. These aren't some secretive practices that only the most dedicated gym goers know about, or something that should even need to be explained. These are pretty obvious common decency practices. I get that someone is nervous about their body and aprehensive, but this isn't that. This is, "Hey fuck you I'm at the gym now."
As one of my friends has gone back to school / is dating someone in school, I was at a party full of college students last night. This was overheard: "Did you used to have braces?" "Yeah, I did for a while." "Yeah, I can tell. It's okay, you used to be a 6, now you're a 9, you're cute, you're adorable." I mean, shit, why bother being a good person or at least interesting when you can do that? And I'm the chump for not doing that. Actually my favourite post from one of the PUA boards - it may have been parody - was someone complaining that he couldn't neg on the Starbucks barista without her complaining to the manager that he was harassing her. Well no shit, you walk up to a someone in a customer service job and tell them that whatever product they're using for whitening their teeth is really working, how the fuck do you think they're going to react?
I have not been to my gym yet this year so I haven't run into the resolutionist crowd yet. My LA Fitness was merged with a local Urban Active that closed and we got a wave of new idiots from that. A whole lot of them look like JWowws' juiced up fauxhawk tattooed boyfriend. I mean I guess IM doing it wrong since Im not as jacked and tanned as they are. Hand to god I saw one of them grunting like an idiot doing shoulder presses on a machine, he stood up, lifted his shirt to check out his abs in the mirror and gave himself an "aww yeah..." I saw another guy, I guess psyching himself up for his next lift, by starring eye to eye with himself in the mirror for a solid 2 minutes, literally inches from the mirror staring at himself. If you can't make fun of odd outlandish behavior. I don't know what to tell you....
Maybe my experience is an aberration, but in my experience, these things are almost entirely uncorrelated with the person being new to the gym.
It's the only thing you CAN do. If you go to the gym, you can either depise it and let it ruin your time, or you can take it in like a breath of fresh air and make fun of it to a bunch of other assholes on a message board. I choose the latter. Gym People are just to goddamn funny to hate. Kubla's gym has guys that are the Full Retard, my place you get guys too afraid to admit they're vain so they check themselves out by looking sideways at the mirror, completely oblivious that everyone knows of that so-called scheme. Can you imagine a gym removing its mirrors overnight and the vitamin raging it would cause? Now granted, you need them for form on certain things. But you can just picture the pommade ratio plummeting.
I think that's another good reason why I prefer a "family" gym. Besides free day care while I'm there, there's no shady shitheels wearing black hoodies dealing drugs. Try that where there are children in the building, and be sure that the dads would crack a 35 plate across their skull.