The other day I was at the local gym in the midst of one of my all too-infrequent workouts when I spied one of the few hot chicks worth scoping out for any length of time (lots of old bags at my club, not exactly the happy hunting grounds that I thought it would be when I joined). I reflected on how the gym represents a kind of "so-near-yet-so-far" deal when it comes to meeting women, because while they are all right there prancing around skimpily-dressed and covered in sexy sweat, the environment never really seems appropriate for meeting and flirting around with them as it does in a nightclub. People are in a different frame of mind at the gym, and often broadcast a variety of different non-verbal "stay away" signals that only the boldest dare challenge.

After a little experimentation and much pondering though, I may have identified a few nuggets hiding amidst this wasteland, such as:

1) If they are locked up in their own little i-pod universe, they are 95% out of reach as far as a direct approach is concerned. I-pods and portable radios are by far the biggest cock-block going on in the gym. How do you break through to these chicks who are encapsulated in their own little world of sound and obviously trying to lock the rest of us out? You can try saying something to them, and if they see your lips moving will usually tear the headset off and ask "what?", but their annoyance at having to do so is apparent and this immediate negative posture is not easy to overcome.

About the only thing you can do is make eye contact here and there wherever possible and shoot them a friendly smile, without actually saying anything (since she can't hear anyway). If you can get a good return from a chick in terms of EC + smile then you may have a play, but I usually store these up and wait to act on a similar positive read the next time, not immediately. Again, I think patience is needed here because women seem easily pissed off by intrusions into their mental workout zone, and so you have to wear down these barriers first in order to set them up properly for a move.

If you can pull a favorable eye contact-type reaction like this on future encounters, then a bit of stop-and-chat will be in order and will certainly seem less intrusive, since she's given you cause to open a convo with her. Women know precisely how to use eye contact to either chill-out or lure men towards them, so you can always be pretty certain any EC read you're getting is fairly accurate, whether it's compelling or otherwise. While this laid-back sort of "ticking" action might be too flim-flam for some of the more impatient among you, if you're looking to protect your ego and operate "without embarrassment" as much as possible then this is the best way to cover yourself and improve your chances of not getting blown off in public.

2) Have one loaded in the chamber and ready to go at all times. Your chances with women at the gym will be infrequent and almost always seem to arrive out of the blue as a complete surprise... with a chance encounter at a water cooler or while waiting to get on a particular machine, etc. So if you're serious about doing this stuff then you need to have something along the line of a Custom Compliment thought up all in advance and ready to use as an icebreaker for each and every woman that you might possibly have any interest in. That's right, each one... so get busy and start observing!

For instance, if you observe a chick who warms up with an elaborate floor routine that's focused on her abs, make note of it. Watch the routine closely and spot something unique like a certain move she does or the extreme number of reps or whatever and remember that. Link it up with something specific about that girl (give her some private, cutesy name like "ab-work Annie" in your own head) to form a mental association, and then file this info scrap away into your memory bank. Some of you will be better at this than, others. What can I say? Gradually try to do this with every girl that looks worthy of your attention (about 5% of the women in my crummy-ass geriatric gym, unfortunately :-(... and slowly build up a catalog of astute observations that go along with each one.

Then... when you do get a chance to trade a few words with one of these cuties (always comes as a surprise in my experience) rather than stumble and bumble around trying to say something clever, you'll have something cool and impressive already locked-and-loaded into your skull and ready to say to her: "I saw your floor set the other day and I was amazed by your ab routine. You show off the results amazingly well..." you flirt, "...any chance that you could take me through one side-by-side and show me how it's done? I've hit the wall on my old routine, I need a change-up." And so there you've served up a nice personalized little compliment that's relevant to the situation and to her -- and is immediately working to spark her up with some genuine admiration. Plus your remark makes sense to her -- it's not just some canned bullshit line.

This is how you Impress!

And... maybe you even scored yourself an immediate little sort of "date" with her working out the floor routine together, right? At the very least, now you've made a friend that you can engage on a first name basis (you remembered to get her name, right?) whenever you see her around the gym in the future, and if the vibes (eye contact, smiles, her laughing at your dumb jokes, etc.) look good, then at some point it's perfectly reasonable to step up and escalate for a get together outside of the gym. Right? Who knows? Who ever knows? That's the "X" factor in all of this -- things can either explode into something incredible and mind-numbingly romantic the moment you attempt any sort of contact with a girl, or it can explode in your face like a trick cigar in one of those old time movies. You have to be ready to catch either result and either run with it or learn to let it roll off your back.

These are just the basic skills you need for all levels of play when it comes to the game of seducing women.

3) Spinning is the best deal at the gym because it's the closest thing to a nightclub environment. The lights are down and the dance music is thumping away... yeah baby! And the high-cardio spinning pumps up the same adrenaline and other juicy-juices in the body that dancing does -- and you know how chicks are when it comes to dancing and/or someone's ability to dance!

Of course, spinning classes or aerobics or whatever present the same type of problems that clubs do in that the noise and "action-distraction" levels make it hard to connect with anyone on anything other than a wholly primitive level. This is where you'll likely need to pull some kind of deal where you end up making most of your moves on the hottie pedaling away next to you with some sexy eye contact and other forms of body language (I'm afraid to even wonder what these might look like coming from you!!!). But you might have a chance to talk with her during the warm-ups or cool down after the class ends and you both stop sucking wind. Got your custom compliment all ready to go?

4) It's going to take repeated tries to break through. Again, this won't sit well with the impatient, but what can I tell ya? Because people are not really in "the mood" in this environment it's tough to create any sort of real romantic buzz on a first meet and greet. It may take a few encounters to get her thinking about you in this way, if at all, and so you have to play it sort of cool -- pay her some attention when it's appropriate to do so, but not slavishly. A fine line has to be walked here for sure. Remember that the eyes tell the story when it comes to women -- when your instincts tell you that you have an interested female on the hook, then that's the time when you must surrender reason to those instincts and take action. You'll know when the moment it right. This stuff is not rocket science, it's really all just awareness plus motivation.

Let's face it, gyms will probably never be the ideal environment for meeting women, but these techniques may give you a better chance to make hay in a poor situation. The way to view this is to accept whatever opportunities you can scare up in the gym as an adjunct to your other social activities -- not as your saving grace or the place where you're exclusively going to meet women. There are far easier rows to hoe.

Mike Pilinski
©2006

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