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?

@31weeksgone speaking of naive and uneducated...

I'm pretty sure you have never been denied a job, nor stopped and searched by police 25 times within a year because you're ginger, or casually assumed to be a threat, a criminal or a terrorist.

I very much doubt the lives of young ginger men in the US are perpetually at risk from police violence and shootings based on their hair colour and/or freckles. Your parents did not have to teach you, from puberty, where to put your hands and your eyes if a police officer stops you in the street.

You are not up against political parties and movements calling for you to be deported based on your gingerness, nor are entire housing industries 'redlining' you out of areas of the city to keep the streets looking 'respectable'.

No one has been putting up posters recently calling for you to be executed for gingerness.

The Pope is not telling you that your very existence is sinful and that you're heading for an eternity in hell. Nobody is spitting at your partner in the street or setting his or her house on fire for being in a relationship with someone who is ginger.

For that matter, if you ever did get married, neither of you have grown up in a world where you could be raped with impunity as the effective property of the non-ginger party. Your ginger ancestors were not raped and enslaved, beaten and tortured with legal and political impunity on the basis of their hair colour.

Yes, people with red hair have suffered prejudice. But not all prejudice is mad equal. Do not minimise the experience of black people in order to feel like your soapbox is more stable.

Also, lighten the fudge up.

Now imagine those same two people doing the inner thigh weight machine facing each other.

Actually don't.

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

If your point was not that OP should not make ginger jokes then you have been very unclear.

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

i) Is there some sort of test of the history of the British Isles you would wish me to pass before commenting? If so, I'm pleased to agree.

ii) Are you seriously claiming that having red hair is responsible for all ills which have occured in the history of GB and Ireland- in a way which is analogous to the oppression of black people?

iii) You still missed the point: the ginger person is not the subject of the joke, the hypothetical prejudiced person is.

or passing it up as “poor life choices” it just makes you come across as naive and uneducated.

I sincerely apologise for appearing uneducated. I am clearly unable to match wits with you but am enjoying being schooled- please continue. Doubtless resorting to name calling would help me seem cleverer, but my naivete will not permit it.

@ladybee28 well that was a badly timed criss list from me

Anyway, I agree with you.

Criss list???

Cross post. I'll just go over here quietly for a bit.

@ladybee28 you’re right, I haven’t. And I didn’t set out to make any ethnic group on this thread feel bad, apologies if I have. That’s not what I was trying to say at all, and I wasn’t trying to minimise ANYONES experience.

And at the same time, I’m sure that some me included (can’t speak for all) ginger people have experienced horrific bullying and life changing events and hate crimes, (like the person that literally got stabbed for being ginger) and that deserves standing up and speaking for. Hate that perhaps a blonde or brunette person hasn’t had to experience. So that’s why I’m not “lightening up” and keeping replying to you, because how could I not reply to that! Just wish people would think a little bit more about it rather than pass a prejudice on enabling more and more children to be bullied about it. Okay?

I have faked all sorts of things happening so that I can set off at a different pace or change pace to avoid going at the same speed as the person next to me. Fake shoe problems. Fake machine issues. Fake emergency text situation.

There's also been some very panicky "OMG that guy is going to think I'm stalking him when actually I'm just doing a circuit." issues when I jump off the treadmill and then go to the tower then weights section and keep ending up next to the same person.

The gym is a minefield for the social awkward.

I missed the"not" in the title and thought you were going to say it was rude to go at a different pace. I came on to say yabu.

Cross post. I'll just go over here quietly for a bit.

Could be worse. You might be arguing that gingers can't tell ginger jokes because slavery.

@donquixotedelamancha

I clearly stated above the part I personally had issue with was the puppy bit.

Also I haven’t missed the joke, again I clearly stated way above too I found that part funny about the relatives because I did actually get it, thanks

Every time someone doesn’t get this post.... a puppy dies

@donquixotedelamancha again! Not what I’m saying at all.

Interesting... I was at the gym this evening but for a class. It irritates me when people don't do things in sync with the teacher. She always says "in your own time..." & I'm thinking, "no, not in your own time, do it at the same time as everyone else or you'll distract me!" I'd genuinely rather the whole class slowed down to the pace of the slowest/least fit than my brain have to try to cope with people bobbing up & down at different speeds around me!

I can't comment on the rowing machine situation though, I'm too scared to try going to do a solo workout. I'm not 100% sure how to use some of the machines, or what stretches I need to do, or what weights it's sensible for me to try & lift, or what order to do things in, or, now, if I might have to use some equipment next to someone who bares a passing resemblance to me in case we're mistaken for siblings... Not entirely sure why it would be a problem if we were, but it's another thing for me to obsess over & put off going to the gym!

@donquixotedelamancha I might keep interjecting random words in the middle of serious posts in an effort to get the thread back on track.

Bananas.

@Whatsacill 😄

Just wish people would think a little bit more about it rather than pass a prejudice on enabling more and more children to be bullied about it

I can get that – your last post made a lot more sense and I can hear how much it matters to you, although given the nature of the OP I still think it's excessive. The OP was making fun OF the prejudice, not perpetuating it. And you don't have to bring black people into the debate in order to make your experience valid; what you're saying would stand up on its own in the right context.

But anyway – back to @Shannith and that CORKER of a weights machine visual...

This exact scenario would make a great TV sketch😀

I've just pissed myself laughing at this, because the one and only time I ever stepped foot in a gym, I went on a completely shitty 90s rowing machine that had a really pixellated video game style screen that showed you how you were 'matching' against some computer generated rower. The fucking bastard, he was well ahead of me. I cannot describe the FURY I felt.
The red (hair) mist descended. I went full on Steve Redgrave and became this manic, poisoneyed, pistonpumping teenager. About 20 metres from the finish line, my mum (who'd taken me to the gym as a 'treat') said 'errr, sadeyed? It's supposed to be more like a pacemaker for you?'
'Yes' I spat. But I want to WIN'

And that is why I am not allowed to do sport.

Am I not getting a history test to decide whether I can comment then? :-(

@Shannith Turdiform

Just wish people would think a little bit more about it rather than pass a prejudice on enabling more and more children to be bullied about it. Okay?

We all want this. Try growing up short, fat and ugly. Stopping jokes you don't like subtracts from the sum of human happiness; it's doesn't stop real bullying one bit.

You have restored my faith in human nature, thank you!

See, OP, I think I agree with the sentiment re other machines, but re the rower, I spent about 15+ years rowing, so it's so ingrained, as in boat club group training sessions you'd have about 20 of you in a row on the ergos together where you're supposed to be keeping in time. In 'non-boat club gym' I'm mainly trying to ignore their timing / rhythm if they don't look like a current/ex rower, albeit sneakily checking their split times (if they're male) and and hoping I can beat it.

Oh but I'm also ginger. I definitely give other gingers the ginger look. Used to be in a crew with another ginger - we had just won a race and the opposition then noticed we had two gingers in the boat, somehow thought that wasn't fair and we had a special ginger power advantage!

Oh, and to all the puppy killers on here....

Don't know if I've done the link right, but only a ginger can call another ginger, ginger.....

(I can say that, see, because I am ginger...)

My hair is not grey - it can be described (by me) as having stress highlights or, that I am a silver fox ( ahem I also have a vivid imagination) so don't describe people as having grey hair or we will be insulted (so there!) & I look best after a bath - when the mirror is steamed up for goodness sake - if some one is of a minority group they are allowed to be self depreciating its called hitting back - subtly

Totally agree.

It's up there with not choosing a seat near another person on an otherwise empty bus or train carriage.

Or not walking at the same pace as the person next to you on the pavement. One of you should win, the other will drop behind politely

You should also not edge forward as far as the card machine in a supermarket checkout queue when the customer in front hasn't finished their business.

But on the other hand, you should definitely stop leaving an enormous, exaggerated, overly polite gap between yourself and the person at the car park pay station. Seriously, what is it with that. It's not a super private transaction which must not be overseen or overheard.

@AGnu - ask the staff at the gym.... they will show you. They will very likely write out a programme for you too. I just go to the gym at the local baths, and they really like it when someone asks for help - FAR more interesting for them than another round of cleaning.