It takes a certain kind of person to treat a public gym like their personal playground.
Here's the thing. For people like me, going to the gym is an accomplishment in and of itself. Willing myself to walk through those doors is often more challenging than an actual workout. After all, there are so many excuses I could use to justify not going to the gym. I could claim I need to clean my bathroom again. I could claim that I have too much work to allow for even 30 minutes of cardio. I could claim that the brief walk I took to the office that morning counts as my exercise for the day.
However, if I manage to overcome all of those potential excuses, my only hope is to have a decent experience at the gym. Hopefully, that means minimal interactions with strangers. Unfortunately, there are some gym rats out there who spend far too much time working out that they start to think that this public space with countless members is suddenly an extension of their home. It's possible that this self-involved way of behaving is an extension of our isolated time over the last five years.
Regardless, now that we're socializing in public again, we have to be respectful of others in these spaces. That means not hogging all of the 5 lb plates, especially if you're barely using them and spending the vast majority of your time absentmindedly scrolling your phone while sitting on a machine. That's not exercise! Collecting all those plates doesn't mean you're actually lifting them. Besides, other people want to use them for their workouts. They likely do not have a desire to confront a stranger in a gym to ask if they can take a weight from them, but this author was left with no other choice since his local gym rat was using all the weights!
This ended up becoming a frequent occurrence, to the point that the author realized the only way he could procure some weights of his own was to take them one by one when the gym rat was away or looking in the other direction. Eventually, this guy was bound to notice that he was missing some weights, but more importantly, he needed to learn that his precious, performative "workout" is not more valuable than anyone else's exercise. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from members of this online community!
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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