'AITA for telling a woman stalking me at the gym that she's embarrassing herself?'
"AITA for telling a woman at the gym that she's embarrassing herself?"
TrainingDistance4448 writes:
I go to the gym a lot. About sixish months ago, I noticed a woman I'll call Andrea. That's not her name, but it will be for the rest of this post. I don't know if Andrea started going to the gym six months ago or if that's just when I noticed her.
Full disclosure, I spoke to her first, but I had no way of knowing what the result would be. A lot of the machines at this gym have little entertainment systems attached to them that can access local channels. I got on a treadmill and realized the TV on the treadmill wasn't working.
Andrea was walking past and I said, "Hey, do you know if there's an issue with the cable? This TV isn't working, but I don't know if it's just this one or all of them." She said the same thing happened to her on a different machine. I thanked her. That was the whole interaction.
A week later, she asked me for some electrolyte powder for her water. I said I didn't have any. She was cool with that and asked me how long I'd been coming to the gym and what I did for work. I answered and returned her questions. She said she was new to the area and worked in private security. We had a few more chill conversations after that.
Six weeks ago, she asked me out. For reasons I won't get into here, I wasn't interested. I declined. She said not to worry about things being awkward at the gym if we don't work out. I said that wasn't the issue, just not looking to date right now.
Two weeks ago, she walked up to me while I was on a machine with only one way to properly dismount that involved stepping into where she was standing. She asked if I was avoiding her. I said I was and apologized. I said I just don't want to date right now.
She said I don't have to avoid her to not date her. I said okay. I kept avoiding her though. Tonight, while I was working out, she confronted me again about avoiding her. I had a bad day and told her to leave me alone. She asked why I'm being such a prick, and I said because I wanted her to leave me alone.
I then said that she was embarrassing herself and needs to stop. She put her foot on top of the weights, and I thought she was going to press down on them, so I let go of the bar very quickly, causing the weights to slam and make a loud noise. Several people looked over. She said, "Now who's embarrassing himself?" and walked away. Did I go too far by saying that? Do I owe her an apology?
The responses came in fast for OP.
Plus_Ad_9181 says:
You need to report the harassment to the gym staff at this point, she’s stepping on your weights? No, she needs kicked out before she hurts someone.
CorpseInTheMaking says:
NTA. She needs to learn to accept rejection and move on. Now she’s intentionally targeting you and cornering you. Definitely report her, just so there’s a paper trail of her behavior. Sadly at the gym you might have to employ the standoffish mindset. It sucks but it deters people from trying to romance you when you just wanna workout.
Cool-Falcon5093 says:
NTA she’s being super weird and pushy, embarrassing herself is way too gentle a way to put it. Honestly I don’t want to talk to anyone at the gym for this reason, I need to be able to relax there.
Big_lt says:
Flip the genders, guy asks our girl, girl says no. Guy continuously pursues her so girl avoids. Guy notices her avoiding and confronts her multiple times. Guy makes threatening statement/stance when girl responds with negative comments. It would be an easy NTA and get a restraining order. Gym management ask to see the video and say she put you in danger with the weights.