To make or not make friends at the Gym?

My priorities go:

1. Be a decent human being.
2. Strength training.

So, as per my priorities, I am morally obligated not to silently mean-mug the floor if someone wants to talk to me. I don't ever go out of my way to initiate contact with someone, but I also don't try to avoid it, either. There are people in my gym who I don't particularly like, but there are also plenty of likable and/or knowledgeable people who I don't mind talking to.

If somebody is going to ask for advice, then I'm happy to give it to them. If someone wants to talk to me about strength training, I'll go for that, too. I really take my time in the gym seriously, but I don't want to alienate everyone else in the process.
 
men's health had an interesting article saying that humans are wary of other humans when they cannot see their palms (allegedly the instinctual suspicion is that the other person has a weapon or is balling a fist to fight.) so they recommended wearing workout gloves.

if you've pissed a couple people off, you shouldn't care. your training comes over their friendship. but it's not an awful idea to seek out the knowledgeable....

In the gyms where I've been, wearing gloves pretty much ensures that the wearer is a gabby-ass curl monkey or a bodybuilder. Not wearing gloves makes you look like a dumbass, a n00b or a weirdo. Which is fine. The college kids don't want to bother with such people.

And the two or three people who might think "that guy must have a purpose for lifting without gloves" are too busy with their own workouts to jibber-jabber.
 
i wouldn't want to talk to any of those people, maybe it's just best to avoid all gym people you don't know. or start going "NAHNAHGANANUN?" and smiling like you're deaf.
 
If you are going to expend social-calorie's at a gym, use it on the women who are open to conversation, not random gym monkies.

Caveat for monsters whom you respect in their routines, but, they probably don't want to talk to You.
 
If you are going to expend social-calorie's at a gym, use it on the women who are open to conversation, not random gym monkies.

Caveat for monsters whom you respect in their routines, but, they probably don't want to talk to You.

Usually if you're doing your thing with a decent routine moving decent weight the monsters will respect that. Dude at my gym puts up 2000+ total tells me the other day that I'm strong...couldn't believe that one
 
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