If you see other guys chatting at the gym, they are the types to chat at the gym. Really the best time to say hello at the gym is when you meet them at the door, right before or after their workout, and see what sort of response you get.
I’m the sort of guy who keeps an eye on his stop watch, measuring his rest time between sets, so I have to be careful not to strike up a conversation with someone who isn’t. I was also tempted to chat up a couple of women at my previous gym, but their rest times between sets were so short I’d throw off their stride. So like I said, best to save conversations for the doorway or the front desk.
I’m kinda on the fence about this. On one hand, I really like to be left alone when I have that laser focus going on. On the other hand, it’s weird to me that I can lift in the same gym with the same people for an entire semester, 5 days a week, and know nothing about them. What’s your name, where are you from, what’s your major, how old are you? Banter is fun when you first meet someone if they’re interesting (or if the girl is cute), and I’m a reasonably social person so I kinda wish every gym had a bigger social aspect to it.
I like talking about the Bears or the Cubs or the Blackhawks with people between sets, but it rarely happens. The smaller guys think I’m going to say something mean, the bigger guys stare me down, and girls in the gym assume every dude is just trying to hit on her. Damn.
Well I’m pretty sure I’m demon spawn (that explains a lot thanks @dt79) but I’m not going to generalise and say all of my generation is hateful souls from hell.
Also if I’m a Millenial, what the fuck are the people born after 2000?
Omg did I see “Blackhawks” Their “cough cough” season wasn’t that ummm…well.lets look at next season. Cubbies I love but Hawks are my hockey team…the rest of the posts following became jibberish.
May I recommend training in a non-commercialized “dungeon” type of place? If you want to talk and make friends anyway.
In high school my friend and I went to this gross looking place with no windows and unpainted block walls. The guys there had no problem ball busting and shooting the shit. Most of them were 40+ and hyuge (or looked that way to me in HS).
The owner walks up to us one day and goes: “are you two gonna start working hard, or are you gonna get the fuck out of my gym?”
“Uhhh… what’s wrong with what we’re doing? This isn’t hard work? What should we be doing?”
He proceeded to put us through a 30 working set back workout screaming at us the whole time.
I train on my basement now, probably for the best.
I used to be super social in the gym. Especially when I was training for powerlifting, and especially when training in gear. I used to have a minimum of 3 training partners for every session. We had a blast busting balls and breaking PRs, but the training sessions took FOREVER (2-3 hrs each).
I just don’t have that much time to spend now, so I try to avoid conversations as much as possible.
The Hawks had their incredible run of winning Stanley Cups while I was too young to go to the parades. The Cubs had their parade while I was scheduled to work. Hopefully my Cubs can win it this year and I can make it to the parade, and then in 5-6 years maybe the Bears can pull it off too…
I’m sorry, what? Wanting to get work accomplished in the gym without wanting to be bothered is somehow a millennial thing?
And I’ll agree with others who have mentioned this: it depends on the gym. When I was going to commercial gyms, there were a lot of people there to get work done who would do what I did: put the earbuds in and go to work. And then there were people who were there primarily to socialize. Now that I train at a Metroflex gym, there are still a handful of people who shut everyone else out, but most of the people I train with talk to each other while we train.
Most of my friends these days are ones I’ve made through the gym. Sounds like your gym sucks. Or maybe you do. Definitely not a generational thing though.
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