An Unfortunate Incident at the Gym

My husband and I recently joined a local gym, in an attempt to actually be healthier and not woefully out of shape, but it's been hard to find time now that he's back to work. Lately, we've found time only on weekends, but even if we do manage to go during the week, it's almost always at night, once we've finished whatever else we have to get done that day. (If it's this hard with just us and a puppy, I can imagine how people with actual children ever have time to go to the gym!)

So this past Saturday, we went around 9 pm. It's a great time to go, because it's not very crowded. My husband was using the lap pool to swim, and I was soaking in the hot tub, being lazy and not actually working out, because my neck has been sore on and off the past few days (probably thanks to my TMJ), and I just wanted to relax my jaw/neck/shoulder muscles.

And then this happened -

-

[INT. Pool room at gym. GUY enters hot tub and sits near but not super close to ANDREA. GUY is maybe in his 30s. ANDREA is not wearing her glasses and can't really see him (or anything else). They sit without talking for a few minutes.]

GUY: Hot tubs are great, right? Best part of the workout.

ANDREA: Mmm.

GUY: Relaxing?

ANDREA: Yup.

[It is hard to hear, because the hot tub jets are LOUD. GUY persists in attempting conversation.]

GUY: So how are you doing tonight?

ANDREA: Fine.

GUY: So you work out earlier, or...?

ANDREA: Nah, I just came for this.

GUY: Oh yeah, I do that after soccer sometimes. I play a lot of soccer. I'll come here to relax after, use the hot tub and the sauna.

[ANDREA is trying to be polite, but also clearly doesn't actually want to talk to him.]

ANDREA: Mmm.

GUY: You got any other plans tonight?

[It is already 9:30 pm. ANDREA wonders what kind of people actually still have other plans after going to the gym at 9:30, even if it is a Saturday.]

GUY: Or this weekend?

ANDREA: Not really.

GUY: Not going out and hitting the bars?

ANDREA: Nah.

GUY: You don't drink?

ANDREA: Not much, no.

GUY: Don't smoke either, I bet. [Laughs.] Not that anyone smokes anymore.

ANDREA: Right.

GUY: So you don't hang out in bars? What do you do for fun? What's your hobby?

[ANDREA tries to think of most mundane, boring thing she does as a hobby, something that will get GUY to stop talking to her.]

ANDREA: [Shrugs.] I read.

GUY: Reading, okay, yeah. I read, too. I read a lot of books about soccer. And books about nutrition. But not fake nutrition. Real nutrition. What do you read? Fiction? Non-fiction?

ANDREA: Mostly fiction.

GUY: Yeah. Reading's so great. It's a great workout for your brain. I like to rest my brain, you know, relax.

[ANDREA wonders why GUY is mansplaining her own hobby to her. GUY goes on for a bit on vague benefits of reading, for no reason ANDREA can see other than to fill the silence he is uncomfortable with. GUY is just talking to talk.]

GUY: You're not very social, are you?

ANDREA: [Shrugs non-commitally, gives weak chuckle.] Heh.

[ANDREA notes silently that this is usually the time when someone would lose interest and/or pick up on the social clues she's been dropping like flies and stop bothering her. Especially since the hot tub jets are so LOUD and conversation is difficult to maintain. But GUY is persistent, and chooses to ignore her short answers and tone of general disinterest.]

GUY: I'm Jake.

ANDREA: [Reluctantly] Andrea.

GUY: Oh really? I have a cousin named Andrea. She spells it with an I. A-N-D-R-I-A. That's how they spell it in Europe. I bet you spell yours with an E.

[ANDREA marvels at the fact that GUY is actually mansplaining her own name to her now.]

ANDREA: Yup.

GUY: So, Andrea, I'd like to take you out sometime. We could go to Barnes and Noble, read a book. [Chuckles.] Or I'll take you to a bar, show you a good time.

ANDREA: I'm actually married.

GUY: Really? Where's your ring?

ANDREA: [A little annoyed that he doesn't just believe her when she says she's married/a little annoyed that he feels he is entitled to proof of her marriage.] I don't wear it in the hot tub.

GUY: Why not? Afraid you might lose it?

ANDREA: ...Yes.

GUY: Are you happily married?

ANDREA: [Now getting more than just a little annoyed.] Yes.

GUY: Are you sure? You don't seem happy.

ANDREA: [Now very annoyed. Wonders why GUY thinks he is an expert on ANDREA's feelings, after talking to her for five minutes. Still, she is a GOOD GIRL, and so tries to be polite.] I'm just tired right now.

GUY: Oh yeah, me too. I put in so many hours working. I'm a soccer trainer, I'm always working and playing soccer. Did I mention I am fit and play soccer? Are you sure I can't take you to a bar, loosen you up a little? You don't have your phone with you? I can't give you my number?

[It is still LOUD with the hot tub jets, and difficult for ANDREA to hear GUY, but it sounds like GUY really is still trying to ask her out. It is AWKWARD and more than a little BEWILDERING.]

ANDREA: No.

GUY: Are you sure? You don't look like you're sure.

-

Finally, finally, he left me alone. In retrospect, I wish I had been ruder to him. I wish I had given him the emphatic "NO, ASSHOLE, I DON'T WANT TO GO OUT WITH YOU, PLEASE GO AWAY SO I CAN ENJOY MY HOT TUB TIME" that he clearly needed to hear to get the hint. I wish I had been "more feminist", and expressed incredulity at his mansplaining and obvious sense of entitlement to not just receive answers to whatever question he wanted to ask, but also to receive the answers he wanted to hear. I wish that I had just gotten up out of the hot tub and left, and walked to the lap pool and gotten in and talked to my husband, and let GUY wonder/worry that I was talking about him.

Instead, I sat there. I let him keep talking to me. I actually answered his questions - shortly but also truthfully. I didn't have to give that guy the truth. I didn't have to answer him at all. I did, because I cared what he thought of me, or what others around the hot tub might think of me, if I were to act obviously rude. I did not want to be the one to cause a scene (never mind that the guy didn't care about doing that at all).

I do not often get hit on. In fact, I think this is the first time since I married my husband four years ago. Since I write and make my art from home, I don't often leave the house by myself. Usually I am with him. If I am alone in public, I always have my wedding ring on - unless I'm at the gym.

More importantly though, I give off that unsocial vibe GUY mentioned. I don't engage in conversation with strangers. When someone I don't know starts talking to me, I immediately put up my guards and give short, annoying answers. Even before I was married, even when I was in college, I was hit on maybe twice. In my entire life. People might try to start a conversation, but they give up pretty quick. They don't typically get around to the actual asking.

So in a way, it was kind of nice to be hit on at the gym. Not because it was flattering. Because it gave me a reminder of how awkward those situations are firsthand. A lot of times, it's hard to relate to feminist accounts on Twitter or Instagram or wherever, when they're complaining about catcalls and being hit on and trying to find non-misogynists to date in the real world. Those things don't typically happen to me. So it was nice to be reminded of why it's important to keep fighting the good fight.

And about the idea of why "hitting on someone" isn't flattering - because I feel I have to explain myself more - as women, we are brought up to think that it's supposed to be flattering. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't get that kind of thing a lot, and doesn't try to get that thing a lot, to be singled out and chatted up anyway, even when I'm not trying, is supposed to make me feel good about myself. Because above all, women are supposed to want to be desired. Men are supposed to want you, and women are supposed to want to be you. So it should "feel good" when a guy comes along and reminds you that there are guys who want you, right?

But it doesn't feel good. It feels awkward. I didn't ask for his attention, but he gave it to me anyway, and I was supposed to be flattered. He never once actually gave me a compliment - never once said I was beautiful, or that I must be smart because I liked to read so much, or anything at all.

The only thing he called me was "unsocial" which - I mean, honestly? That's not a nice thing to say. I don't like when it's pointed out to me that I'm being "too quiet" or "too shy" or "too anti-social". I already know I'm acting that way, I'm already upset about it, and I'm already worried that people think I'm being rude when I'm not intending to be (or, in this case, upset that I wasn't comfortable being ruder, and getting him to leave me alone). Telling me I'm anti-social isn't nice. It makes me feel more uncomfortable, and that was a situation in which I was already uncomfortable. I was in a gym (a place I don't know well), in a bathing suit (which like, I'm not terribly insecure about my body, but I'm certainly not used to going around in a bathing suit in public), without my glasses (which means I was blind and couldn't see any of his facial expressions or facial cues at all, or even the clock with the giant-ass numbers on the wall to know how long he'd been annoying me), and in an environment in which it was often difficult to hear what he was saying.

The whole thing was designed not to flatter me, but to make me uncomfortable. But Andrea, you might say, he didn't know you were blind without your glasses. He didn't know how infrequently you get chatted up by strangers, and how awkward that makes you feel. He was just trying to be nice.

But wouldn't a nice guy take the hint, and stop pursuing a conversation I obviously didn't like? Wouldn't a nice guy believe me when I said I was married, when I said I was happily married, and leave me alone at that point? Would a nice guy be so eager to "corrupt" a marriage, to encourage an affair, to take an unsocial innocent and get her "loosened up" at the bar?

I reiterate - the whole thing was designed to make me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable in fact, that I might "give in" to what he wanted, just because it was easier. I was supposed to be desperate, because I was alone in a public hot tub on a Saturday night with clearly nothing better to do.

I wasn't the fiery bitch I later decided I should've been, once I had more time to digest his words and the way he said them. But neither was I the desperate girl he was looking for.

I am not saying that guys shouldn't hit on girls (or girls shouldn't hit on guys). But there's a time and a place for it. And if one party is giving off "go away" vibes, stop it. And ESPECIALLY if someone says the word no, STOP IT. "No" does not mean "yes." "No" does not mean "convince me." No means no, even if it's said by a meek, awkward, near-sighted girl, in a way that doesn't seem entirely believable to you.

If she can manage to say "no" she can manage to say "yes." She chose not to for a reason.