Starting to feel alienated by omni gym culture

[SoupAndRoll]

I cannot escape everyone talking about the gym. All day it’s a babble in my large open plan office. Gym earlier later, body pump, spin, weights - it’s replaced television

It hasn’t really bothered me until recently. I started online dating and OH MY are the men keen to tell you about their gym time. So many photos. And if they are lifting weights they might be outside - but if they are outside, they are cycling.

Obviously I do know that this is healthy. But also - I sort of miss the days of the pub.

Its like anything, if you're not interested its boring as fuck.
I love discussing politics but lots of my friends don't so we talk about other things. Gym people talk about it because there are so many different things they can do, techniques to try and things to learn. Boring as if you don't use them.
I luckily also have friends that like to go and get wasted still and go to the gym!

YANBU to find it all very boring, so do I. But I’m also not surrounded by people who talk about this all the time. Perhaps look for other friends, not many people in my circle are obsessed with the gym. Some are but they don’t talk about it much (in my presence anyway).

Peak gym bores are CrossFit and HyROX fanatics.

I thought those training for marathons were bad until I met these!

I go to the gym and cycle. I’d rather hear about that than what’s on TV. I don’t drink much so find the alcohol culture boring and actively avoid people whose only interest is alcohol / pub

People talking about the gym in detail is boring. Going to the gym is good.

There must be so many gym guys on online dating because nobody wants to go out with them in real life!

I don't see the problem. I am in a relationship, but if I wasn't and was using OLD, I would definitely mention that I go to the gym a lot, lift weights, climb mountains etc, because I would ultimately be looking for someone else who has a similar outlook regarding health and fitness to me and who lives a similar lifestyle and has a similar level of fitness. If a profile like that deters the unfit people, then that would be fine with me.

Surely just avoid the active lifestyle men on the dating apps if it's not your thing, and find people that talk about wanting to go to the pub.

Also, I think it's great that so many people talk about health and fitness now. We need to be healthier as a society.

Making your whole personality just one thing is as boring as fuck no matter what that thing is.

When people aren’t in relationships, they tend to throw themselves into the gym to give themselves something healthy to do take their mind off things and give themselves some positive endorphins
I would imagine it would slow down after they start going to the cinema and having dinner with people

Rather gym than TV talk

It’s your problem though.

Patronising twaddle. I know lots of people who enjoy the gym, single, married etc. A lot of people are focusing more on their physical and mental health, that can only be a good thing.

God yeah. How do you know if someone does CrossFit? They’ll tell you.
I train quite hard 3 x a week, talking about it outside the gym is as exciting as talking about washing my hair. No one is interested other than my trainers, who are paid to be.
And to a PP: there’s a lot of space between droning on about your diet and exercise routine and being a “fat couch potato”.

I enjoy the gym, but find it a fairly limited conversation topic... running on the other hand...

I think the issue is (and I’ve talked to friends about this) is that if a man’s dating profile is all about the gym it makes you think, am I going to see them? Is this your entire personality?

A lot of us have had relationships or marriages where the man is out the house all weekend or every evening playing golf, cycling, swimming, football etc. and we don’t need another relationship like that.

I go to yoga. Maybe I’m a yoga bore. 🤣

As much as I don’t want to talk about the gym, I do love men taking care of themselves. They look so much better than men who don’t, especially as we get older.

I do crossfit but manage not to tell everyone. Maybe it’s because I am really shite at it…

I’m all for people being fit, what I find hilarious is the younger people in my team who talk as if they have discovered exercise! It’s like us in their 40s and 59s have never done it before them! It’s hilarious/massively patronising. I just smile and nodd.

I am trying to work out why I find it so offputting to me and I think it is that I exercise. I walk, I swim I do weights at home, but I do those things because I want to be fit for life and stay mobile longer (I think the days of doing it for looks faded as I’ve aged).

In other words, it is a means to an end. It is for health, but not an end in itself.

The gym obsessive that go to the gym because they enjoy the gym aren’t for me because that doesn’t interest me at all. Gyms are rooms
with machines that I will use if I can’t get outdoors for some reason. They perform a function. I can’t get excited about them at all.

The competitiveness and the always striving for fitness goals doesn’t inspire me either. I prefer my goals to be outward facing. I am inspired by being part of a community and being part of the world outside - not by how much I can improve my quads. It feels self-centred rather than outward looking.

Health is good. Health is important - but you do healthy things so that you are well enough to do OTHER things.

That is just me. Don’t come at me if you love the gym for its own sake. Just saying I get turned off by men on dating apps who feel that way - and
this is why.

Did you put fitness as one of your own interests, OP?
I imagine OLD has sorting algorithms, and will help pub-lovers find each other & fitness lovers find each other (and art-lovers find each other etc.)

It's weird that you get lots of gym-lovers unless you said you had a similar interest. Or is "gym-lover" equivalent to a weight range or a body build type that OP told the OLD algorithm that she prefers.

Maybe 5 yrs ago a friend was doing lots of OLD and almost none of the guys she dated were gym-going types. Friend does not go to gyms. Somehow the algorithm worked better for her.

Old differs by age group too, it was pictures next to flashy cars (they don’t own) or holding large fish in the 50 something bracket. My now dh was next to a motorcycle but at least it was his own motorcycle!

You know what? Words can have more than one meaning - and both meanings can be equally derogatory - and equally apt.

I love gyms, I love working out, I love running, I love the high that exercise gives me. I am convinced that if more people exercised (doesn't have to be at a gym) chronic health conditions would reduce dramatically.

But I have zero desire to tell anyone about it, post pics, bore anyone senseless with it. In fact, I only ever speak about it if someone specifically asks me or starts up a conversation about it because I know how tedious it can be.

We do exist 😆

Age 22-30 I was a gym bore. Lifting weights 6 days a week, PT one of those days, no drinking, batch cooking, taking meals in tupperware to parties, supplementing with creatine, protein shakes, glucosamine, sports massages, quarterly professional body composition measurements... I got to the point I was having steak and peanut butter for breakfast.

Don't get me wrong, I was strong as an ox and 12.5% body fat, but f*ck me I must have been so boring. 🤣 Also how the hell was I affording steak for breakfast I dont know ! 🤯

Now I look completely average.

You should try online dating for the over 40s in Switzerland OP! 😅

All the men are either climbing the Alps, cycling around the Alps, skiing down the Alps, running up the Alps, and hiking up the Alps, all with wrap around shades and mirrored goggles. Next photo is the ubiquitous gym selfie, followed by the golf selfie, followed by them at the helm of a yacht.

Each to their own but it's usually followed with a sneering comment about avoiding nights in watching Netflix. That's for boring folks apparently!

It just brings my thoughts back to the MN conversations about men with hobbies that take up 45 hours a week.

I like to be active, but what's wrong with an occasional night in, a movie and a snuggle?