If you think that people are not looking at you, then you are sadly mistaken. I would say that you could count me in with the latter. No where was this more prevalent than in the gym. My wife would query about a particular person doing an exercise. My daughter would ask me if I saw the look another gym goer gave her. 

What befuddled me wasn’t their questions, but if each had been working hard at building their own physique, how did they find time to notice all of those things? 

Perhaps it’s my own narcissist or selfish temperament. I go to the gym to work on me, when I am not in my role as a CPT. A fellow gym member paid me a compliment while talking to the client I was training. 

“You’re in good hands,” he said. “You have an excellent trainer. He’s so focused on training you that he doesn’t see me trying to get his attention.” 

I nodded politely, and continued with her training. Bemused that he would have attempted to talk to me while I was working.  

This singular focus drives me to the exclusion of seeing anything around me, to carve out the physique I’m after. The only time in my opinion to survey the gym is when you are first entering, to determine what machines and benches you need, and if someone is occupying it. Other than that, a polite nod to a familiar gym member is all that is warranted, and that’s if they made eye contact. 

What if I told you that you’re being looked at and more than likely judged away from the gym as well? 

Tell me something I don’t already know I can hear you answering. 

Did you see I added the word judged? Not only are you being looked at, but the person or persons have formed an opinion of what they saw. 

Most of the time we are not cognizant that this has happened. People do not go around making their impressions of you noticeable. Unless they are blatantly obvious, as in the case of my daughter, who swore the girl was gawking at her with a disapproving stare. 

Well, an incident occurred that gives credence to my wife and daughter taking notice of other people.  

A great deal of my time is spent preoccupied in my own thoughts. The characterization of an absent-minded professor would be ideal. 

It was the 2nd day of July. An impeding thunderstorm would be hitting the area around 6pm. I wanted to grill, and needed a few things from the store. I immediately became annoyed because in my haste, I forgot my shopping bags, and did not have a quarter for the cart. 

I walked over to the cart corral. Sometimes, a quarter would be left in the cart. I was in luck. I walked in the store and start shopping. 

Don’t quote me on this, but I believe I saw this woman. If I did however, there must not have been anything that left a favorable impression or I was too preoccupied with my thoughts to notice. 

This was not the case though in the parking lot . . . 

B.M.Booth (NASM-CPT)