u/AcidicSlimeTrail

I love people watching at the gym.

I go 2-4 times a week, which is often enough to get to "know" a lot of the regulars and see their specific journeys.

There's the guy who had a severe hunch a year ago who is almost standing tall now.

The guy in a wheelchair whose upper body is absolutely ripped.

The guy who's overweight and STRONG. Any time I use a machine after him, I need to knock off at least 100 lbs.

The cool punk person who has a different hair color every time I see them.

The guy who I've seen at 3 different locations. They're all a half hour away from each other. How do we keep choosing the same one?

The guy who is always smiling ear to ear while doing cardio. I would love to be that positive about running.

The woman I "stole" an ab exercise from. I did a single set at a much lower weight and my stomach cramped so violently I almost screamed.

And so many old and/or disabled people. People with canes, people with casts, people clearly doing some form of physical therapy.

Even the people with huge muscles, people throwing around 3x their body weight like it's nothing, can be seen hyping themselves up. That dead, exhausted stare at the wall. When you want nothing more than to give up and leave, but you gotta survive one more set. It's hard, it sucks, and that's okay! We're all having a simultaneously good and bad time.

The gym I use has a bad reputation, but it really is a place where people are (generally) exercising for health and self improvement. I haven't talked to anyone beyond "how many sets do you have left?" or "can I grab this?" but I feel less alone when I'm there. Whether I'm hitting a new personal best or doing therapy for chronic pain, there's no shame. We're all just doing our best.

I was in a horrible mood after work. As I was walking home feeling hopeless, I thought "look, I'm not gonna myself, but I would still really like some sort of sign affirming I shouldn't." After a few moments I then added on "and make it something extremely obvious. You know I'm dense."

Cut forward a couple hours, I'm eating dinner with one of my roommates, and I start doing the mathler (a daily math puzzle game I do every evening that gives you the answer to an equation, and you're supposed to figure out what that equation is). I asked my roommate to choose a random number 1-100 and I would base my equation on whatever they chose. I submitted the guess, and it said I got a division sign right.

I jokingly told my friend, "congrats, you got a sign."

They said back, "this is your sign." They paused for a second, then looked me dead in the eye to repeat with conviction, "this is your sign."

I did ask for an extremely obvious sign lol. Coincidence or something significant? Who can say?

I've been real inconsistent so it took a solid 6 months, but I did it! 🎉 Now onto the sequel that's about the same length lol

I started a job at a doggy daycare, and was left alone with a tripod dog who hates men (a man is the reason he's missing a leg). The dog had already given me a warning nip, so I wasn't going to push interacting until he felt comfortable. All the other dogs had been picked up, so there was an hour where it was just the two of us. I tried enticing him to play with a ball, but he was completely uninterested.

I was bored, there were 3 balls, so I decided to juggle them. It's important to note that I'm not very good lol, but it definitely got the dog's attention. He came over to watch, tail wagging, and then I dropped them again. He grabbed one, chewing on it for a minute before shoving it at my hand. We ended up playing fetch for the remaining time until I was let off!

I am white, but due to my mix of features and the way I dress, I'm a bit ethnically ambiguous. My hair was down to my shoulders and coily, so some people thought I was half black. I recently cut off the majority of it, and now it's still curly but too short to form a good, bouncy coil. I'm no longer mixed, now I have hispanic people trying to talk to me in Spanish. The "illusion" wears off the second I open my mouth to say "lo siento, no hablo espanol" lol

Eta: perceived ethnicity, not race

Does anyone else experience this? My sense of time is already shaky at best of times, so I keep notes of when I do certain things that can't be done too often or too infrequently.

I'm currently at the gym, and I've been lamenting all week how "lazy" I've been. How it's been a full week since I last went, I'm losing muscle, etc. I'm having serious trouble staying present, can't remember what weights I do, so I pulled out my workout log which showed I worked out 3 days ago. Not long at all. I feel weird trying to look back on what I've done the last few days that made time feel particularly long, but it's blurry between a few key moments (e.g. work, property destruction if you look at my last post 🙃).

I'm not sure if it's an ADHD poor sense of time and bad memory or a dissociative "I haven't been properly conscious in awhile" situation. Anyone relate? Any insight?

I struggle to form habits anyway, but sometimes I'll lose one and have to spend days to weeks to rebuild the lost habit. I'm not talking about complex things, I mean basic stuff I've been doing for years. I'm currently re-teaching myself to turn lights off when I leave a room (especially bathroom), putting on deodorant, and taking meds in the morning- all of which I've been struggling with for over a month out of nowhere.

I've had plenty more examples over the years, but I never wrote it down so I can't remember them. I'm not getting old nor do I have dementia, my brain just clears files out for no reason every so often

I was waiting for a flight at the airport, when someone came over to speak to two women who were sitting next to me. The guy said he was escorting a woman to her gate, but needed someone else to ensure she successfully got on the plane. She didn't speak english, and he didn't think she spoke at all. The two women said sure, offering the older woman a seat. After the guy was gone, one of the women said "español?" and the supposedly mute woman immediately opened up in Spanish.

Less than 10 minutes later, the three were all talking and laughing like old friends, and they all boarded together.

Is this even a thing for anyone besides me?

ETA: the specific catalyst for this post is I have a weird like, freeze thing. My brain feels extremely thick, thoughts are in a dense fog, and I end up freezing while being fully aware that I'm being "weird." I can pull myself out of it, but it takes a ton of energy so I usually just wait it out (2-10 minutes). I am not asking for medical advice, I am simply clarifying my question in the title so you know I'm not just talking about, say, only being sad when I'm alone lol

I've known for awhile (over 10 years) that my thinking slips into the "magical" pretty often, and I end up having to consciously remind myself not to fall into psychotic lines of thought. Like, there's a guy I see semi regularly that my brain has decided is the personification of death. He obviously is just some random normal guy. I also have to remind myself I don't have superpowers or anything like that. It's a purely internal thing and not really a problem since I'm still very aware these thoughts are insane. Anyone else?