Hello, Stranger!

Either he goes to the gym every day, or he goes to the gym every day that I’m there. Which, while flattering, seems highly unlikely.  Way more unlikely that I’d want it to be.

He was the hunk in the neighborhood growing up. Tall, Latin, star of the baseball team… And best friends with my neighbor, Junior. The neighbor who harassed me every day for almost my entire childhood. (The neighbor who could probably buy me and all of my wordly possessions if he wanted to… then, like, burn them and rebuy them all, and then, like, give them to the homeless and buy me a third set. Because he can. Bastard.)

So the point of this is I was the biggest loser of all time ever as a kid and that lasted pretty much until 3 years ago — OK, last week. Whatever. Don’t be mean. So my neighbor Junior and his best friend spent a lot of time either a) ignoring me, or b) making my life a living hell. That lasted until high school when they both ceased to acknowledge my existence. Blessing, meet curse.

Well with the advent of the “facebooks” I “friended” both of these “people” and then proceeded not to have any contact with them because that’s weird.

But when I was at the gym a few months ago, I noticed this really tall, attractive, Latin guy who was really well built and didn’t listen to any music. Then I saw him a few weeks later and something went off in my head. He looked familiar. He was The Stud. He got built. And hot-er.

And clearly he had no clue who I was.

But I started realizing that he was always at the gym. And was always on some apparatus that faced whatever apparatus I was on. There was eye contact. But absolutely no acknowledgment. To be fair, until today I had never even seen him smile at the gym. And he still doesn’t listen to music. But the question is… do I say something? Re-introduce myself? Don’t get me wrong – mama has no interest in this character, but it’s just bizarre. He knows me. We grew up together.

So I came up with a few options:

1a) Approach him and say something to the effect of, “So, are you here every night? Or just every night that I’m here. Because that would be creepy. And not likely.”

1b) Send him the same message on Facebook (because were are totally “friends”) but add “I figured this was safer so we can still continue to ignore each other at the gym” — this would allow for the less awkward first encounter.

2) Approach him and say, “Hi. I’m Jane. Junior’s neighbor. How’s it going? I see you here a lot…”

3) Leave him the fuck alone because clearly if he wanted to say hi, he would have. And no one needs akwardness at the gym.

I haven’t had to use my “gym balls” since Plank Guy, so this would be a new fun challenge.

In the comments – tell me what you would do! Are you an at-the-gym-friend-maker?