Agressive Man Update

I wrote briefly about my experience as a woman here in BA, mostly laughing and a little shocked at the behavior of the men in the club a couple of weeks ago. Well, I have an aggressive man update…

I go to the gym most days near my house. It’s a nice enough place and after a month of going there, I feel pretty comfortable in my surroundings and doing my thing. My thing often is a little different than the thing of others. I am pretty into the gym and my gym in DC was a reflection of that. As my DC readers know, Results the Gym in Dupont Circle is for two things – getting laid (if you are gay) and hardcore workouts. So for me, I’ll take option two.

Anyway my gym here is decidedly more straight, more age diverse, etc. I welcome this mix overall; it is one of the things I enjoy most about leaving the gay ghetto I loved so much.

The one thing that seems to be the same is the social component. At Results they are looking for a date, here maybe they are just looking to avoid exercising – they don’t seem to be working out so hard. Many of the women are caked in full makeup, sometimes even dripping in jewelry while I am dripping in sweat.

It doesn’t matter. I do my own thing; listening to my Ipod, wearing my crappy Adidas shorts, enjoying my little world sans my precious baubles. Occasionally I get stares, but I have learned to ignore them.

The other day, however, things got a bit more aggressive. I went to do some lunges, taking the 6 kg (about 12 lbs) weights from the weight rack. As I am looking in the mirror and doing my lunges, I become aware of a pair of eyes on me. The eyes are attached to a 40ish guy with a slight paunch, who has turned to watch me do my lunges with a lusty look in his eye. I am a little embarrassed (remember my long history with the gay gym), but finish my set. He then comes up to me and asks to borrow my weights and tries to engage me in a conversation. Not a problem, I respond, giving him the weights and going back into Madonna-land on my Ipod. He then proceeds to do curls right in front of me, like a peacock showing me his feathers.

I was not impressed with the colors, I was creeped out.

I took the weights back, finished my lunges, and went to the other part of the gym to stretch. My advice on aggressive pickups in the gym: always wear an Ipod. That's of course, if you are lucky enough to have one.