When you are at the gym, minding your own business and someone gets the machine right next to yours. You can tell they are bored out of their minds, they don't have iPods or nothing to keep themselves entertained and that's when they start to stare back and forth, side to side. They look at your numbers and I am really trying to concentrate but I can see the out of the corner of my eye and I just feel like stopping and telling them something like "can I help you? Can you please stop staring!!??"
It's usually other women that do this... Older too. Please ladies, watch the tv or read a book, but don't be staring up and down!!!
That doesn't really bother me, I was engaged in what I was doing, texting, and listening to music yesterday on the arc trainer...and I still glanced at the ladies next to me stats, and I felt awesome because they were skinny and not doing neatly as much as I was. Wasn't judging them, just curious. Now if someone is directly staring at you for a prolonged period of time, and concentrating on you specifically...That's just creepy. What does REALLY annoy me at the gym is personal trainers trying to solicit me and interrupting my work outs trying to get me to spend $130 on a session with them! WTH?
I take it as a compliment that they care enough to glance over. I kind of think it's an automatic thing for some people just to be looking around. BUT I can definitely see it being annoying to some people!
What bugs me at the gym are:
1. People who leave the machine dripping with sweat! Even if you don't bring a towel (I've forgotten mine), there are papertowel stations EVERYWHERE at my gym.
2. People who camp out on machines. Multiple sets, cool! Kind of long rest times, okay. But watching tv and just sitting there, annoying as heck! I know I can ask to work in, but I loathe doing that.
when people look over at me i kinda use it as a 'competition'. i'll agree with you mescelestus that if smaller girls aren't working as hard as me, it makes me feel better
now one time i got on the elliptical and these two girls got on ellipticals on either side of me. and proceeded to talk over me for the entire 45 minutes i was on the elliptical. and the gym was loud so they were practically yelling at each other.
AND THERE WERE OTHER ELLIPTICALS OPEN.
it took everything i had to not scream at them. i just finished my work out and left.
Last edited by slicedbreadbox; 09-21-2012 at 02:54 PM.
I'm glad you agree slicedbreadbox!!! How about when someone gets on a machine next to you and SMELLS either really bad like BO or they're wearing too much perfume or something? That REALLY bothers me bc here I am breathing heavy, and have to extra strongly breathe in all that smell!!!!
I know what you mean! I'm not so much bothered about them looking over, but it definitely annoys me when the entire gym is empty and someone decides to use an elliptical right next to me.
What annoys me are the men that come to the gym to flirt with women. I have seen this so many times. When a guy comes up to me and I'm midway through my set, sweating bullets, I am NOT in the mood to make small talk- sorry... I see them do it to other women too and it's ridiculous!
i must work out at times during the day when less annoying ppl are around
however i dont like it when someone is running on the treadmill next to where i'm running because that movement in my side vision throws me somewhat off balance...(i have iffy balance at the best of times anyhow)
i also had this one guy who used to run close to me...couple treadmills over...who wore insanely strong cologne...it didnt bother me that i had to smell it the whole time, but i was worried that it would aggravate my asthma during a run
Everyone at my gym is pretty cool and I will on occasion glance around (especially at some of the hot guys in the weights area lol) but the one thing that bothers me the most is when I look up from working out and someone (usually a man) is staring right at me-and never looks away!! It's happened a few times. I look at them and they just stare, and stare, and stare. It makes me so uncomfortable that I end up looking away and don't glance back up in their direction!
If there is someone on a machine next to me, I always check their stats. Just a quick glance. Then, if they are working harder, I make it my new goal. I prefer distance, though.
Like Iconised Ghost said, if you're next to me, we ARE competing! Except I'm usually on the bike, not the treadmill. So instead of Usain Bolt, Lance Armstrong, lol.