Reminds me of the time I was working out on the elliptical machine in a hotel gym when some weird dude plopped his butt down on the machine behind me and declared that "I'm just going to sit here and watch you work out". Before I had a chance to recover from that little gem, he asked me how working out on the machine made my legs feel.

Ugh, these guys! And there are many of them out there living among us...

Say what?! I would not have been this witty or polite. Amylou, I have adored you before by the patience with others you displayed in your posts. But this takes it to another level.

I also have a coworker who had had gastric sleeve surgery. She has lost about 100 pounds and is doing everything she can,it seems, to put it back on. She already regained 20 pounds, and she just had the surgery a year or so ago. Its sad.

She also has become a super diet expert. Look, I am not trying to be mean. But I won't take diet advice from someone who had to have an expensive and dangerous surgery to have most her friggin stomach cut out to curb her eating. Especially as it doesn't appear to have helped her in the long run. If I want diet advice, I will ask a doctor or Google. Thank you.

ETA:or the KT!

I can't help it Iris. I do get amused at the weirdest things.....

"If you want to lose weight, it's easy ... ALL you have to do is ..."

Hadn't heard that I wanted to ... and if I did, should I consult a poster boy for such a project for guidance?

As for, "I'm just going to sit here and watch you work out" ...

... "Since you're within four/six/eight/ten feet of me (your choice of permissible distance) and intruding in my comfort zone, don't you think that it would be appropriate to ask my permission?"

just me

That is so out of line, that I would suspect his intelligence or his mental health!

LOL! It seems that we are ALL experts at EVERYTHING, doesn’t it?

Scary thing is, these people breed...yikes! Reminds me of many years ago, I had this Koozie that said "stupid people shouldn't breed"...HA!

Did you ask that 350 lb pile, "If you know what to do, why aren't you doing it?"

Jem,I did insinuate with the "adonis" comment...but I think it went over his head....

It's difficult to believe that anyone could be that stupid. But then again......LOL.

This is not the only time this has happened to me. It happened once before at work when I had and was using a portable elliptical inside when a very similar exchange happened. With another large,clueless man.

Good thing I am not easily offended....

Nice to be able to dish out a bit of a dig in the ribs on occasion ... but a bit frustrating when it flies off unheeded in the direction of the horizon.

o j

great replies from you! since he didn't clue in on them, it's obvious that his head was buried deep in something... somewhere.

"What's behoove?" LMAO!!!!!

I saw this last night and was going to reply, but I was speechless. I still am.

You handled it well.

Ah yes...a real "tend your own garden" moment.

I suggested that phrase to my GF who was complaining that her DH criticizes the tv shows she likes to watch as they're 'mindless'.

So the next time he suggested she should be watching the history channel instead, she told him, "Tend your own garden!" His reply?

"What's that supposed to mean!"

Hahahahaha. Who's being mindless???

Annie, by chance does her DH watch sports? Pretty mindless.

I nearly spewed my coffee over this one amylou! For one, the nerve of anyone to be critical of someone’s workout at all, and when I read the rest, well, he was just totally out of line. He’s so totally clueless, you have to wonder how he gets through the day. You handled it so well.

Me: "Nope, I am blissful in my ignorance. There are oreos in it."

That's going in the quote file!

Gurl! You did a fine job of holding your own in that exchange. People just amaze me!

You guys horrify me. These people do not sound harmless. They are behaving like stalkers and harassers. As women, heck starting when we are little girls, we are encouraged to not make waves, to be good sports, to laugh it off, Etc. And it gets us what? It gets us violated, and the person who does it says "well she didn't stop me." Be firm, be direct, and do not hesitate to call in reinforcements, in the form of supervisor , passers-by, anybody. I know, I just know, someone is going to say "oh I didn't want to offend him over nothing". It isn't nothing. It may be your safety, it may be your life. If you must look at it from the stalkers perspective, consider that you are doing him a favor by raising his consciousness, protecting him from future experiences of pepper spray, mace, tasers, being on the receiving end of kickboxing, keeping his ass out of jail.

You are much more tolerant than I am. I would not engage in a conversation with someone like that. I have found they tend to twist whatever you say.

I greatly enjoyed her snarky humor in those replies and the fact in went over his head. I don't have that skill. I would have laughed in his face if he said it to me. If he made a second remark....ohhh....I would tell him off.

Unsolicited advice is usually worth what you pay for it. You handled that much more diplomatically than I would have. What an ego on that guy!

You have great patience. I would not have engaged him in conversation for that long....

He sounds like a guy with control issues .. and a complete A-hole

Funniest thing I've read in a long while, what a clueless dunce! Too bad for him he picked the wrong person to try to "educate".

Sylvia, I completely agree with you. I am so tired of having to look around before getting out of my car when I park, not be able to go to a bar for a drink by myself, making sure I'm home before dark, fending off unwanted advances and all the other things women routinely do to stay safe without even realizing they are doing them.

While this is Amy's thread and I don't want to hijack it, I did complain to hotel management about the guy in the gym. I didn't do it at the time because I was so shocked, but I wrote a very long detailed letter about my experience after we were back home. In the letter, one of the things I mentioned was that the gym was in a windowless room with a locked door and how that made me feel even more vulnerable. Last time we stayed there, I noticed that they now require the door to remain open at all times. While I didn't use the gym (kind of lost my desire to workout in public after that incident), it made me feel better knowing that people who are using the gym aren't as isolated anymore.

Dawn in cal,

It does seem rather regrettable that you felt the need to let that guy's pressure have such a long-lasting effect on that part of your routine.

ole joyful

She had no choice. The potential consequences- gunshot wounds, stab wounds, death- were too catastrophic to risk.

Sylvia, while I understand your concern. This really was "nothing" to me. And I have never hesitated to offend anyone who steps out of line as far as harassment or any sort of inappropriate overtures. As a little girl, I was never taught such things as don't make waves or laugh it off. Perhaps it was the fact that my sisters and i had 3 older brothers who educated us in that regard.... However, just as a reassurance, at my job I am surrounded by lots of big scary men (and a couple scary women) in steel toed boots who are but a phone or radio call away. However, in this case, as I really was MOST,perhaps inappropriately, amused, I handled it the way i tend to do such things. Being a clueless oaf is not nearly the same as being a disgusting or dangerous pig.

I will say that in Dawns case, I would have reacted differently than I did with my impromptu personal trainer. As my youngest older brother would say, "If you are faced with a pig, make bacon." I will also add though, at the risk of derailing my original point of this post, that I am absolutely assured of my own safety in public. That is, I carry protection with me if I feel it warranted, be it pepper spray or something stronger.....We all know what I am talking about....

That being said please don't turn my post into a political pillow fight based on my last sentence. It is was it is, and no one will change me. You are all nice people, and I would hate to declare shenanigans on you.....but so help me i will......

You've been warned..

To me, there is a difference between amylou's incident and Dawn's. Amylou seems to have at least a passing acquaintance with this man, as she also is familiar with his wife. Dawn's was a complete stranger in a strange place. That scenario raises all sorts of red flags. Amy's doesn't seem to have the element of "stranger danger".

Yes, aok. I have seen him and/or his wife probably 6 or 7 times in the ten years i have been at the job, so hes not really a stranger at all. But he was clearly not familiar enough with me or my personality to avoid starting such an ill advised dialogue with me, poor man. The first man (the one i mentioned that said something to me while i was on my portable elliptical at work) WAS a complete stranger though. And I can't recall him ever coming back in there. Not while I was in there anyway. However, I felt no danger and handled it the same way. It's eerie how similar the conversations went.

As I said above, my reaction to Dawns gym creep would have been quite a different story......

It is very VERY difficult to offend me. I usually can see the humor in situations. So i use sarcasm and/or wit to diffuse what could turn into an awkward or angry situation. I really prefer to do things that way,if only to entertain myself. But I do not tolerate any invasion on my personal space or safety, and have NO issue hurting someones feelings or man bits to protect myself.....

Oaf vs. Pig: decide and act accordingly

OK, I love your last line there, amylou!

You have another very effective weapon, as well, amylou321,

... a sharp tongue, close to being hooked to a sharp mind!

(They both inhabit the same house!).

o j

Sigh.......

Alright, I'll delete my posts then.

With stories like these, it's hard to convey the atmosphere of the situation which is critical in determining how one might react appropriately. When you're in that situation, your 'antenna' will help you determine if you're safe or not.

My story. I was a young college gal in Boston walking down the street eating a pack of M&Ms...(my excuse for my freshman 15!)... and coming the other way was a fairly large black guy, maybe in his 20s. He came up to me and said, "Hey mama, you got something I want." I stopped and looked at him and said, "Hold out your hand." He did and I shook some M&Ms in it. He said, "That's not what I meant." I said, "Too bad, that's all you're going to get." I walked on and so did he.

Under other circumstances in other atmospheres that's *not* how I would've reacted, but in this instance, it was appropriate.

It's like getting parenting advice from people who don't have kids, or had their kids taken away (my sister in law). Seriously? You think I'm going to listen to you???