Phase three of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything”
3. Don’t: Don’t talk loud enough to where half of the gym can hear you.

- Is there ever really plausibly sound scenario, not just in the gym but in society in general, of when it would be appropriate for me to here your conversation while I am more than 40 feet away from you? The answer of course being not really: pending some interesting circumstances, none of which, however, can be applied to the communal gym setting. Who in the world wants to hear about how many sets you have done so far or how many “Jager” shots you and your overly hair gelled buddy did last Saturday or about how you are having relationship problems? The answer is once a gain a simple one, NO ONE but the immediate person that your conversation is directed towards. If I am in normal earshot of your conversation, then it is my own prerogative to hear what you are saying: at any time I can move a little bit further away and choose to work on something else if your conversation is bothering me. But if I am already a good distance away from you how the hell is this supposed to work. Should I be forced to listen to head phones when I am at the gym because I don’t want to hear your conversation from three car lengths away? No, I most certainly should not. You are having a great time and joking with your buddy and that is just fine and dandy but not everyone around you wants to hear about it. This is one of the main things that I notice the most when I am at the gym. It’s always one or two people each gym shift. Meaning that if you try to work out at night you will have one or two of them or if you want to work out in the afternoon you will have one or two of them. These are the same people that do this crap in public. They subconsciously want those around them to be impressed by what they have to say or they want their so called “swagger” to be a little more apparent. If the goal is to draw attention to yourself, well it is working, but the attention you are getting is probably not the kind you want. Whatever the case may be, regardless of what you are trying to do and regardless if it is truly intentional or not, cut it out it is annoying to most of those around you.
3. Do: Strike up a normal volume conversation and keep it quick

- I actually encourage people to strike up conversations while at the gym, it can be a great way to kill time in between sets and make new friends in the process. But at the same time this can be a slippery slope into these obnoxiously loud conversations. For example most of the people that I see exhibiting this behavior are gym buddies so to speak. Meaning that their relationship exists only at the gym, and when they see each other every other day or week it ignites this loud “Yo “insert name” what the hell have you been up to…man how’d that party go,” that can be heard half way across the gym. Just like with most of these other Do’s all that is really needed is a self awareness of your surroundings. I mean personally loud conversations that people have don’t really bother me all that much, I just find them to be annoying and ridiculous. If anything when they happen, they simply make the people having them look stupid, because usually the content is not something that typically needs to be blasted across the universe like it is. But the low key conversation with the person that shares the same gym times as you or the person that you are working in with are great and almost no negative factors can stem out of these occurrences – unless you are working in with a serial stalker, in which case you might be screwed for life (but that is a whole different story). So the bottom line really lies on you being mindful of your vocal volume and the fact that nobody around you really cares how long Dave did that keg stand for. Once again this is just my opinion, take it or leave it.