When it comes to gym going habits, I always factor in the time I need to get dressed, take care of any bathroom needs, changing back, but most importantly, showering. If at any point, it doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to get a shower in, I just won’t go to the gym; period, full-stop.
I will alter my workouts and drop down from three sets of everything to two sets of everything. And/or I will drop weight in order to ensure I’m not getting gassing and taking excessively long breaks in between lifts, all in order to make sure that I have adequate time to get my shower in, because like I just stated, if I can’t shower, then there is no workout.
Over the span of the last year, I’ve often witnessed men, and well women, who come to my little office gym to workout, and after they finish, they’re dressed back in their slave office attire and leaving within the next five minutes. Obviously, they did not shower, which always has me scrunching up my face in varying amounts of disgust based on how sweaty and gross I think they probably are, depending on the seriousness of their workouts, which in most cases I can usually observe and evaluate while I’m doing my thing.
And I always think it’s weird and gross that people are doing this, because even if I were to hop into the gym, walk five minutes on the treadmill, do some bicep curls or some push-ups or some lat pulls, I know that I’ll have warmed up my general core to at the very least, feeling a little bit sticky and un-fresh. I know I’d want a shower from just that amount of activity, so I couldn’t fathom doing an actual workout where my chest has started sweating because that’s the part of me that apparently starts sweating first, for your daily dose of TMI, and I don’t clean myself off.
One of my greatest fears is being the guy that smells bad, because that’s a reputation that I imagine lasts forever to those who are unfortunate to have been hampered by it. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever smelled bad, but I’m also convinced that most people can’t really smell themselves, and I’m always paranoid that in times when it’s hot out and I’ve gotten some perspiration going, I am someone that smells bad and just the people I surround myself with in my life are all too polite and considerate to ever say anything to me, or perhaps I really don’t smell bad, and I’d like to keep it that way, and the best way to ensure that kind of silence remains is to keep myself fucking clean, by virtue of taking showers, especially after working out.
Plus, I just love the feeling of being all clean and fresh after a nice shower, and I’m baffled that so many other people don’t enjoy it enough to want to alter their exercise habits to ensure that they can clean themselves up too.
I asked my friends in one of our collective group chats on I were being weird by being so grossed out by people who didn’t shower, and no matter how many times I’ve brought up the topic, the answers haven’t really changed much mostly because 80% of the people in my group have muted the chat because those of us who are active are often too fucking active and they’re tired of checking in and seeing 87 new messages about inane topics like humans that smell bad. But a lot of them are seemingly okay with it, or defending or giving excuses for people who don’t shower after working out, and it doesn’t gross me out any less, as much as it makes me think that people need to prioritize their lives better to where they should probably concern themselves with their hygiene more than they do.
Take for example, there’s one dude, who is actually on my floor, who doesn’t work out in the gym, but he goes on long nature hikes on the paths that surround my building, but he comes back sweatier than a wildebeest, and he tracks in all sorts of mud and debris into the locker room. And then, he doesn’t shower, ever, and just gets back into his default skin, probably takes a damp towel to himself and considers himself fine to go back to the office, and I’m disgusted by him every time I see him, especially after noon, because I know where he’s been and I’m sure he’s probably a guy who smells, but I don’t want to find out to confirm.
But more recently, and what spawned this revisiting of this topic is that just the other day, an extremely high-up guy in my company came into the gym to workout. And I’m talking about like, not the CEO of the company, but like the #2 or #3 guy in the company, someone who is on the highest floor of our building. He’s recognizable because he’s the guy who leads off the vast majority of corporate communications and is undeniably the highest positioned guy in the company on premises, because the CEO of the company, despite adding a fourth day of mandatory in-office a week, lives in fucking Florida in a grand display of hypocrisy.
Anyway, super high-up executive guy, he’s actually in pretty good shape for his age. White girls might even consider him a silver fox. Does some time on the rower, does some hindu squats, spends an adequate time on several machines, working out all over the body. Has what would be considered a pretty full workout in the process.
He vanishes into the locker room, and I’m thinking to myself, does this guy, a major high-up executive for this $2B company on the rise, come out in five minutes, or does enough time pass to where I can believe he’s taken a shower because he had a pretty decent workout?
Of course, he emerges in five minutes, in his default skin for white guys, cornflower blue oxford shirt and khakis, and it’s evident that this guy who probably makes three times what I do and is the highest position in the building, did not shower.
Obviously, going back to the title of this post, clearly, I am the fucking weirdo, because I value hygiene and cleanliness moar than the rest of the slovenly sweat hogs that I work with. And upon further reflection, I realize that there are probably fewer people than I have fingers on a single hand that I have seen who actually shower after their workouts. And at this point, I suppose I really can close the book on the topic, and stop asking myself and all my friends on if I’m being weird for judging people who don’t shower after working out, because it’s pretty evident that so many in the world are completely at ease with being gross and stinky in situations where they can control whether or not they can refresh themselves.
