The Pros And Cons Of A First Date At The Gym

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In case you don’t remember, I was real thirsty last weekend. Unfortunately, this thirst led me to have the worst sex of my entire life. However, before I made terrible the terrible life choices that led to the terrible sex, I went trolling for Brads in my existing Bumble matches. I was not subtle. If you’ve ever wondered how my drunk game is, here you go:

Yeah. Subtle as brick. Honestly, when I woke up and saw all the messages, I didn’t think anything would come of it. At least, not anything useful in the sober light of day. However, several hours later, I was surprised to find a very sweet message from a very innocent Brad who did not seem to understand what the tone of my message was implying.

Instead of something overtly sexual, he responded asking about my lifting routine. I mention that I lift in my profile and saw that he does, too. I love lifting weights and I would honestly love to date someone who would go to the gym with me (yeah, judge me, slide into my DMs, whatevs), so I was pretty excited. We chatted for awhile and he seemed nice, and we discovered that we belong to the same gym. I was excited and planning our future of daily lifting dates together, but I was still surprised when he suggested that we have our first date there.

There is nothing about the gym that suggests it would be a good first date. We all know that. You want to get in and get out, you don’t look your best, you’re out of breath, and it’s kind of hard to talk. However, I had never had a date at the gym before. I agreed to meet him at our local Gold’s Gym to see if we clicked and how horrible a gym date would be.

I showed up at the appointed hour at the gym in my electric blue workout pants, “Don’t Be Basic” Stormtrooper tank that showed off my shoulders, and highest high ponytail. I was feeling pretty good about striking a solid balance between cute and serious gym rat. I sent Gym Brad a text to let him know I had arrived and saw a tall, muscular man walking up to me, smiling. I was momentarily stunned.

I had finally been blessed by the dating gods to experience the rarest of phenomenon: going out with someone from an app who was significantly more attractive than their profile. Gym Brad walked up to me and I blinked in surprise. Honestly, I had trouble believing we were the same species of human. He was 6’4″, shared a similar body type with Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, and had a fantastic smile. I think there may have even been a twinkle in his eye.

“Quinn?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.

“Derp,” I replied. I mean, I assume that’s what I said. I’m not really sure because I was busy calculating the odds that he had swiped right on me by accident.

We made our way down to the weight room and the date commenced. To be honest, it was an incredibly confusing experience. At times, I thought, “this is the perfect date, I’m having all my dates at the gym from now on!” However, I also found myself thinking, “this is so awkward… what am I supposed to do here?”

So, what’s my final verdict on the merit of gym dates? Instead of telling you whether you should or shouldn’t give this idea a shot and have your first date at the gym, I’ll give you a list of the pros and cons and you can decide for yourself.

Pros

1. You can impress your date with your athletic prowess and show off your body in flattering poses.
The more we lifted, the more attractive I found Gym Brad. He could lift roughly double what I could for every exercise and it was incredibly hot. Similarly, I caught him checking out my ass in the mirror more than once. It’s a great way to just cut to the chase and find out what you could be working with if things progress.

2. Endorphins.
Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don’t shoot their husbands. Endorphins will also give you a positive feeling associated with the person you’re on the date with and vice versa, making it more likely that they’ll enjoy your company and want to see you again.

3. It can help your gainz/improve your overall fitness.
Obviously, you want to impress the person you’re on the date with, so that probably means you’re going to put in more effort than you would if you weren’t being watched by someone you could potentially have sex with. I hit several PRs that day and I suspect that Gym Brad doesn’t leg press 600 pounds daily.

Cons

1. It’s difficult to set a romantic tone.
Honestly, 80% of the time it didn’t really feel like we were on a date. We weren’t in close physical proximity a majority of the time so it was kind of hard to tell if there was any real attraction there. The sweaty gym floor under fluorescent lighting is not the easiest place to bond over a cute story about something my dogs did the other day while laughing and placing a well-timed touch on his arm.

2. It’s hard to talk.
If you’ve decided to both do the same routine and just switch off machines or sets, it’s really awkward to try and fit conversation in between. You don’t want to say anything while you’re doing a set because you’re focusing on impressing them with your physical prowess (or maybe you’re breathing really hard), but you don’t want to interrupt their focus while they do a set either. This leads to a lot of between exercise chatter that really prolongs the overall workout. We were there for two hours and I’m usually in and out in an hour and fifteen minutes max.

3. It fucks up your routine.
I have a workout log where I have pre-printed all of my weekly routines and I meticulously track each rep and weight over time. I break up muscle groups strategically by day in a very specific order. Gym Brad has a more chill lifting philosophy and does full body workouts daily and never tracks anything. When I first got there, it was incredibly awkward because we had to agree whose routine we were going to do, knowing the other one would be upset about the interruption in their own.

The one tip I would give you if you do decide to try this out for yourself is to very clearly establish with your new gym buddy what routine you’ll be doing before you get there. This will save both parties a lot of time and aggravation as well as help you both minimize fitness losses from the departure from your usual routine.

Overall, I had a really good time. We seemed to get along really well, we actually managed to talk about some semi-substantial topics, and did I mention that he was a complete hunk? However, I have no idea how we left things. I’m not sure if we were having a good time as potential romantic partners or as gym bros. It was all just very confusing.

Maybe I’m just not as evolved as the rest of you, but I think I need a more traditional date setting to tell if we have chemistry. Not to mention that having your first kiss in the lobby of a busy gym at rush hour in front of the juice bar and supplements for sale would be incredibly awkward. However, if you do decide to try out the gym as your new go-to first date move, hit me up on Twitter or email and let me know how it goes! I expect an invite to the wedding. .

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Quinn Truflais

Formerly known as Queen of The Garbage People. Functional title still stands. Dog owner, whiskey drinker, Star Wars fangirl. #DoingItForTheContent QuinnTruflais@gmail.com

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