For a lot of people, going to the gym can be more than just a workout, it can also be a chance to destress and blow off steam.
However, for one woman, her trip to the gym turned into a very stressful experience when she was approached by another gym-goer who was full of opinions about the woman’s attire — and her body in general.
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The woman posted her story online, detailing how the other creepy gym-goer had approached her.
Taking to Reddit’s Am I The Asshole subreddit, this woman asked, “AITA for telling another gym member to wear a bra?” She then started her story by explaining:
“With work from home, I spent the last year and a half basically never wearing a bra and got used to it. Quite frankly, my boobs are nonexistent anyways. I recently started going to the gym again and started working out braless. I should note that up until now, no one has ever pointed out anything wrong with me not wearing a bra.”
However, while she was doing squats, she was interrupted…mid-squat!
“In the middle of a set of squats (yes, MID SQUAT), a guy comes up to me, taps me on the shoulder to get my attention, and tells me that my nipples are poking through my shirt,” she wrote.
“I get really irritated because why tf is this guy staring at my nipples in the first place and then stopping me mid-set to inform me? I get really annoyed, try to finish my set, but then this f***** literally grabs the bar, as I ascend and re-racks it for me.”
After grabbing the bar from her, he claimed he had thought she was struggling.
“He claimed it looked like I was having trouble with the last rep, and that he had come over to make sure I could do it, then noticed my nipples,” she went on to explain. “I’m really f****** pissed off at this point and told him I didn’t need his help finishing my set and why the f*** was he looking at my chest in the first place?”
It’s a good question, I don’t know what staring at her chest or making a comment on any part of her body had to do with “helping” her with her reps. Also, she didn’t need help anyway as, “I pointed out that the safety bar was set, so even if I did fail the set, he wasn’t needed.”
It was at this point that, “he just insisted [that] going forward, I should probably wear a bra so other people wouldn’t get uncomfortable.”
Apparently the guy did also claim that wearing a bra would help her stay more balanced with her squats…which is just fantastic advice.
However, our heroine had one hell of a comeback primed:
“I’m now really annoyed and also kind of uncomfortable that this guy I’ve never spoken to in my life thinks he’s helping me and then has the audacity to tell me how to dress.
“So I tell him, ‘You have bigger boobs and nipples than I do. Maybe YOU should wear a bra so people won’t get uncomfortable and you won’t fail your squats.'”
The guy was, as you can probably imagine, not pleased with this burn.
After being quite rightly burned, the fragile gym bunny called the woman a “bitch” and walked away.
However, the woman ended her story by writing, “Honestly I’m not sure if I overreacted, but I’m still kind of pissed off so maybe that’s clouding my judgment. [Am I the asshole?]”
Although, the majority of people were aghast at the man’s behaviour.
Most people were shocked that the guy felt he had the right to comment on someone else’s body regardless of the context, with the top response being:
“Report it to your gym, he had no right to comment on your body at all, and no right to try and assert his ‘help’ onto you, if he can’t control himself from staring at another person’s body then he shouldn’t be at a place where he’s going to encounter all manner of bodies.”
A lot of fellow gym-goers also pointed out that wearing a bra might not have prevented the issue, with one person writing:
“As someone with boobs, sometimes your nips show through a PADDED bra. I’ve never worn a sports bra that didn’t headlight people pretty much the entire time I had it on. His argument doesn’t even make sense if you know boobs work.”
Do you think that she overreacted to his comments?
Nobody should feel self-conscious about their bodies in the gym, or anywhere for that matter, and the fact that he felt that he had authority to make such a comment is ridiculous.
However, let us know how you would have handled this situation in the comments below!
h/t: Reddit
