You hear about this kind of thing happening in Times Square, where someone hands a tourist something unsolicited and then hits them up for money the moment they accept it. I never expected to experience a version of that in a gym locker room.
Someone walked up and said they had something for me. Handed me a water bottle before I could really process what was happening. I tried to decline it but they insisted, so I took it to avoid making a scene. A few seconds later came the ask. One dollar.
I told them I did not need the water and did not have cash on me, which was the truth. They were not trying to hear it. Started pointing at my bag, my pants, pressing the point in a way that felt more like a shake than a favor. I stayed calm, kept declining, and eventually they moved on. The whole thing was equal parts strange and almost funny in hindsight. I respect a good hustle, but I am not the one.
What made it stranger is that this was not the first time with this particular person. A while back the same individual tried to recruit me as a client for some kind of money management arrangement. I passed on that too for obvious reasons.
What I noticed is a pattern. This person uses the gym as a hunting ground, approaching members with pitches and schemes that have nothing to do with why any of us are there. That kind of thing is frowned upon in any gym environment, especially when it involves pulling members away from the community they came to be part of. It creates an uncomfortable dynamic that nobody signed up for when they walked through the door.
Don’t be that guy.
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