To think that normal gym etiquette is to not go at the same pace as the rower next to you?

[TwatCat]

It's just wrong.
The unwritten rule is that you have to be going slightly faster or slightly slower than the person on the rowing machine next to you. Otherwise it looks like you're in the same boat which you clearly aren't.

I've got the added problem of being ginger, and under no circumstances am I allowed to go on the equipment next to the other ginger in the room. This is very rare as I'm usually the only one. But people might think we're brother and sister.

I especially couldn't go on the rower and row at the same pace as the other ginger in the room. Can you imagine that? We'd be sibling boat rowers.

So AIBU?

@KatherineJaneway that's a rule too. The problem comes when there are two of the same machine that you want to use between a man and a woman.

Do you choose to use:
A. The machine next to the man?
B. The machine next to the woman?
C. Weights?

I don't use a gym. I have the runners' problem of needing a walk break and encountering other people around so I HAVE to run on until an adequate distance to be able to walk respectably

I always wanted thick ginger curly hair.

I’ve given up rowing, the rowing machine moves backwards across the floor and I can cover quite a distance in the gym. Nobody else seems to have this problem and I’m not any lighter or heavier than other people I see on it.

But at least if I started off matching the stroke of the person beside me I would soon disappear out their peripheral view!

Love this OP. Lighten up a few of you

Would you tell people to lighten up though if it was about skin colour? No you’d be branded a racist. But because it’s hair colour, you’re allowed to single a specific group of people out and it’s funny? Come on people

(Do think it’s funny about the rowing, and about the being related, just not about a dead puppy )

Do they have the men with beards on one side of the gym, men with moustaches on the other side, gingers spread out alternatively with one blonde, one brunette, and the baldies at the corners ?..

@TwatCat

I go best to the person that's more agreeable. For example we have a few people at our gym who don't believe in mopping up their own sweat, so it's on the floor. I avoid machines they are on or have been on.

No, the only rule of the gym is not to make eye contact with anyone when they’re using this machine

Hilarious thread. Thanks OP.
There are 2 or 3 posters with a sense of humour bypass, but please lets not let them drag the thread down.

SleepyKat

Yeah, definitely meant as lighthearted!

Only on MN would this need stating after such an OP. I wonder how some MNers navigate through life.

Are we genuinely saying that because certain people don’t want to be singled out because of a characteristic of their appearance it’s dragging a thread down or we have an issue with our humour? Genuinely?

Make the same jokes about black people then, see if that’s funny? Jesus!

I assume you're joking?

I hear ya OP I'm an ethnic minority in a very white area so if there's another person the same race as me in the gym I stay away in case we look like siblings. Especially on the bikes or rower!

Make the same jokes about black people then, see if that’s funny?

i) The history of gingerdom (gingarity?) is not quite the same as that of the sub saharan african diaspora. There are very specific reasons why some jokes about black people might be off limits.

ii) The joke format used by OP is ubiquitous amongst black comedians (silly riffs on being mistaken for relatives). It is funny. The subject of the humour is not the ginger person (in this case the OP) but the prejudices and assumptions made about ginger/black people

Telling OP not to comment humorously on her own appearance and comparing the struggles of the strawberry blond with apartheid, slavery etc are both poor life choices.

Well explained @donquixotedelamancha . Excellently put.

What?!

There's a rule when running/cycling of keeping a suitable distance, but in a gym? That's new to me.

Then again there's rarely anyone who wants to row at my snail pace so it's not a problem I've tended to face.

Definitely go next to the woman they tend to smell better...

Also where do you look between sets on weights?

@donquixotedelamancha I didn’t tell OP to not comment on her own appearance, actually.

If you’re comparing ginger/black and you don’t know the origins of hate against gingers eg Scots/Irish against British then perhaps you shouldn’t be commenting on it or passing it up as “poor life choices” it just makes you come across as naive and uneducated.

It’s just not nice is it? There’s no need for it about any single group/ethnic minority/race. In this day and age of preventing bullying, suicide rates etc. You think that grown adults may have a little more sensitivity but somehow it’s still ok. Anyhow, yes the thread was funny, in bits. I don’t wish to even de-rail it, but poor life choices was a bit far.

No no no, OP! My rule is, don’t sit beside me if you’re much younger than me, because you’re going to be fitter and show me up. Or don’t you dare sit beside me, if you’re much older and fitter! The shame! Actually, no one is permitted to sit beside me if I’m on the rowing machine. I need my own gym.

OK let's change it to brown, slightly greying hair.

The image of two people who look alike, rowing in sync while trying to ignore each other is funny.

Apologies to any rowers, people with brown, greying hair or indeed people that I have inadvertently offended.

🤔