I Want Men to Help Me

When I ask them to.

Photo by Atikh Bana on Unsplash

There’s a certain type of man who sees a woman in the weight room at the gym and thinks, “I need to help her.”

Some of them give you unsolicited advice because of course they’re the ones who know. They’ll make you perform exercises their way, and if you don’t, they’ll stare and shake their heads.

Others just stare. I try to ignore those.

Then, there’s the man who can’t handle seeing a woman holding heavy things in her hands and needs to save her from the situation. This happens to me constantly at work when it’s time to change the water cooler bottle.

At the gym, though, it’s simply incomprehensible.

Am I Not In the Right Place?

This week it happened again, as was setting up the barbell for some heavy hip thrusts.

As soon as I grabbed my first 20kg (44lb.) plate, a man who had been staring at me for good while finally decided to show up to help the damsel in distress.

“Oh thank you, but I can handle this,” I said, giving him my best GTFO smile. He stepped back and of course kept staring until I left the gym.

I’m an old-fashioned girl. I like it when men hold the door or are chivalrous, in general. But I have to say this puzzles…