Are You Talking to Me?

A few years ago my husband and I belonged to a gym that was a perfectly fine facility, but it did have one flaw.  There always seemed to be other people there, getting in the way, standing between me and the machine I wanted to use like the people keeping the woman from the tuna fish in that Christopher Durang "Laughing Wild" monologue.

Maybe it was because this particular gym actually had the word "Club" in its name, but a lot of the people insisted upon socializing while they were there.  They would sit on a machine chatting and not exercising while other people (like me) were waiting to use it.  There was one guy who seemed like he was there solely to fraternize.  My husband nicknamed him "Waldo," and we played a game with the objective to spot him actually working out, which didn't happen often.

This was all annoying enough, but then sometimes people would cross the line and try to engage ME in conversation.  This was entirely unacceptable.  I had a singleminded purpose at the gym - to do what I was there to do and to get the hell out.  I did not want to chat, or make friends, or even join a class of any kind.

So it was with great pleasure and appreciation when I recently joined my hometown YMCA  and discovered that the people there are just the way I want people at the gym to be.  Everyone is unfailingly polite and courteous, nodding hello and holding doors, and saying "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me."  Other than that, no one has any more interest in talking to or getting to know me than I have in talking to or getting to know them.  Yes, like the town itself, it was just perfect.

So perhaps I had my guard down yesterday when I was hanging up my coat at the Y, minding my own business, when the lady next me turned to me and cheerfully proclaimed "Boy, you smell nice."

Was it just me or was this an especially weird thing to say to a stranger? I mean, really, I  smelled nice?  I wasn't standing very close to this woman, and I wasn't wearing perfume.  What sort of sense of smell did this woman have, anyway?  

Why, oh why, do strangers talk to me this way?  I've been told that I'm approachable.  Oh, I curse my approachability, if it means that strangers talk to me at the gym.

I didn't know how to respond.  "Um, thank you?"  I said.

"But not for long!," she added, laughing gleefully, before taking off towards the workout room.  

I managed to finish my workout and get out of the building without interacting with anyone else, but I really have to find a way to be less approachable.