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Do people normally do this at the gym?
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Jan 12, 2023
A happily married 36-year-old man has been going to the gym for several months now and has developed his own routine in that time — one that was recently ruined by a newcomer.
After getting home from his strange encounter with the young woman, he decided to log into Reddit’s “r/TIFU” (Today I F--ked Up) to tell everyone about what happened to him.
The young woman poured alcohol all over him after he took off his wedding ring.
He started his post by providing some context as to the timing of everything and how he goes through his routine at the gym.
He claims to have been going to the gym since November 2022, and will “always go after getting the kids to bed which generally puts me there around 8:30pm.”
“My routine begins the same every time with 9.1-9.5 miles on the bike,” he writes.
He explains that after his bout of cardio, he enters the weightlifting room close to 9 PM.
“I enjoy hitting weights at this time because the gym is often (not always) empty and it leaves me to grunt and groan in peace,” he explains.
“Tonight the gym was not empty when I entered the weight room.”
In the time that he’d started going to the gym, he’s been able to keep a mental note of the people that he was used to seeing around this time and mentioned that he had spotted someone new.
“Not a big deal, she had brought her own yoga mat (the ones in the gym are blue and red and this one was tie dye-ish) and she had her phone set up on a stand, I assumed she was making a video,” he explained.
“Both of these observations were made as I walked down to my trusty bench to start my bent-over rows.”
He claims to have made a mistake when he decided to take off his wedding band to lift.
“I grabbed my dumbbells and sat down to continue my ritual,” he writes. “I always remove my wedding ring before I lift and tuck it in my right sock for safekeeping. If I try to wear it, it digs into my hand and makes things most unpleasant.”
He was only halfway through his first set, switching over to his other arm when he felt the woman tap his shoulder for his attention.
“So I stopped what I was doing and turned to see new girl standing behind-ish me sporting a menacing glare and wielding her iPhone,” he wrote. “I popped out my earbud and asked what was up.”
“You’re disgusting,” she said to him. “You saw me in here and took off your ring, planning on chatting me up? (This is a little paraphrased, she swore a little too and I wasn’t taking perfect notes).”
Completely baffled by her accusations, all the man was able to do was ask “What?” to which she replied, “You’re gross,” and stormed off.
He claims that she had started to pack her things and headed toward the exit as he was resting in between sets, but she wasn’t through with him just yet.
She came back and emptied her water bottle filled with alcohol all over him.
“Anyway, I’m rowing away and out of nowhere I’m blasted with a cascade of liquid which leads me to drop my dumbbell and spin around to see what’s going on,” he continues.
“There’s [the] new girl with her recently emptied pink Yeti screaming at me (I’m assuming for being gross, it was unclear as I had my buds in still).”
By the time he took his earbuds out, it was already too late and she had stormed off once again.
“I think the highlight of the exchange is that my gym shirt now smells like vodka,” he wrote. “Do most people drink at the gym? Am I doing this wrong?”
Fortunately, his wife was able to get a laugh out of her husband’s altercation at the gym after he explained why he “smells like I’ve had a raging party.”
The man later edited the post with an update, claiming that he had emailed the owner of the gym about the incident, who explained to him that the woman had already received a prior ban in early 2022 for “aggressive behavior” and would follow up with him later.
“If I see new girl's video on social media I’ll be sure to share it here,” he ended the post. “I don’t know who she was but it’s a pretty small town so it might pop up. Cheers.”
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.