Rule number one in the gym: DON'T TALK TO ME! This might seem like common sense to everyday gym goers, but it's not. I don't know what it is about a girl listening to music, sweating, and focusing on her workout that gives men the idea that we want to have a conversation, but we very well do NOT!

The gym is a place to get in, workout, and get out. It's not a social event and it's not a place you go to make friends. All the people that treat the gym as anything more than that just get in the way. What's worse than the people who treat the gym like a social gathering? The guys who you can feel are staring and then decide to actually come up and talk to you.

No.

No, I do not want to talk to you.

No, I'm not interested in you.

No, I don't need your help.

Yes I'm a female, but what about that makes you think that I'm in the gym for any other reason other than to workout?

Just recently, actually, I've had some questionable encounters with some guys at my local Planet Fitness. There are men that think they know how to work out better than you do just because they're guys. There are men that go to the gym just to stare at other people, especially the females. Then there are guys that are so concerned about what YOU'RE doing as if your workout affects theirs. I've had interactions with all of these stereotypical genres of gym heads and my view about talking to me while I workout remains the same: just don't do it.

A guy the other day stopped me in the middle of a set just to ask me if I do weights or if I just run. Excuse me? Why wouldn't I do weights? Because I'm a girl? You stopped me IN THE MIDDLE OF A SET just to ask me if I lift too? For some reason, what I do in the gym was so relevant to this guy's workout that he just had to tap my shoulder and interrupt MY workout. That same guy proceeded to linger around the areas I was working out in and then stopped and gave me a little "I'm impressed you can actually lift weights" look while I was on the bicep curl machine.

I guess it's surprising to some guys that girls know what they're doing in the gym and that girls can lift weights and do the same workouts they do, but it still doesn't mean we want to talk to you. Be surprised that girls kick ass in the gym without talking to us because quite frankly, you don't have anything to be surprised about anyway.

Yes, we're girls and yes, we lift weights. Now stop staring and get off the machine I need because some people came here to work out.