THE WEIGHT INCIDENT

A gym flirtation turned ugly when a woman put her foot on a man's weights mid-lift and the bar slammed down with a crash.

For months, he had been seeing the same woman at his gym, though he says he only noticed her about six months ago. He called her "Andrea." Their first interaction was ordinary enough: he asked, "hey, do you know if there's an issue with the cable? This TV isn't working, but I don't know if it's just this one or all of them." She told him the same thing had happened to her on another machine.

A week later, she asked if he had any electrolyte powder. He answered, "I don't have any." After that came a few casual chats. She said she was new to the area and worked in private security. He asked "how long I'd been coming to the gym and what I did for work."

Then, about six weeks before the post, she asked him out. He wasn't interested. He turned her down and told her, "I don't want to date right now." Later, he explained that he started to feel like "something might be wrong" and began avoiding her. When she confronted him about that, he admitted it. "I was" avoiding her, he said, and apologized, repeating, "I just don't want to date right now."

The next confrontation came while he was working out. He says he had a bad day and just wanted space. She approached him again, and he snapped. He told her to leave him alone, said she was embarrassing herself, and told her she needed to stop. In his words afterward, "I wanted her to leave me alone."

That's when the weights incident happened. She put her foot on top of the weights while he was lifting. He let go of the bar fast because he thought she might press down on them. The weights slammed loudly. She shot back, "now who's embarrassing himself?"

In an update, he said he went to the front desk and told staff about her foot on the weights. After that, she apologized about the weights, and he apologized for saying she was embarrassing herself. The two then talked about making up over drinks. She suggested, "maybe we should buy our own drinks," and said it wouldn't be a date, just "a reset for our friendship." He replied that he didn't want to go out with her, and then clarified that he didn't want to be friends either.

That didn't end it. She asked if his problem was that she was Hispanic. He said no and told her the weight incident had made him uncomfortable. She pushed back again, calling him "being a douche," and challenging "what my problem is." He finally told her to "just stay away from me." She ended the exchange by saying he had "a lot of maturing to do."