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Harry Donoghue

“If you crash those weights again, I’ll box your ears in”

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All was calm in the gym, I had just changed the output of my headphones from French radio to my European music playlist – I had a few more sets left on the tricep pushdown and I was looking forward to driving home and having some breakfast.

As I look down at my phone to change song, I notice something approach out of the corner of my eye – I have been joined by another presence. I turn my gaze upward and see an 65-75 year old man before me, his brow furried, his cheeks and lips tensed into a grimace. Looking back on this moment, the first frames of the scene, I remember that I initially thought he was either slightly ill (Alzheimer’s or the like) or that he was ironically pretending to be angry with me.

I slid my headphones off my ears and so the silent mouth movements became lines of speech “Oi, you, if you crash those weights again, I’ll box your ears in”. Suddenly, the situation became crystal clear, and my system was overwhelmed with different emotions in quick succession.

I first felt anger and annoyance, “who does this man think he is to shout at me in the gym?”. I mouthed a “fuck you” and sprang up from the seat and approached him – I definitely did this in a ‘squaring-up’-esque way, no intention to fight of course, just to give that impression. Perhaps it was initial anger and shock which so pushed me from my seat at the tricep push down, but when I approached him, I just said to him, “what’s up, is everything okay”.

We had a little back and forth where he said I was crashing the weights when I finished the sets, and, in a loud voice would say that it’s been rattling his nerves for a bit. I responded in a calm but still in a argumentative way “what did he expect, this wasn’t a ballet class (I didn’t actually say this, bloody wish I had, I think the example I used was a lot less funny) but this was a gym, if he didn’t want noise he shouldn’t have come here.”

Seeing that we were going nowhere, I decided to change tactics, to out-manoeuvre him. I decided to empathise with him. I asked him if everything was okay, was he suffering? Why did he react in such a way? By getting angry and literally threatening violence, did he think he was actively helping to make the world a better place full of love or was he adding to the hatred and division which was raging in Iran, in Ukraine and Russia? Asking these questions, he softened and he half-apologised for reacting as he did, but still maintained that his eruption of rage was justified by my actions.

The rest of the conversation did not progress any further, nor did it become any more positive. I just felt in a permanent shock and I couldn’t quite get over how someone could become so angry and unleash their rage out in the open. Is it not embarrassing? Is he not ashamed about his loss of face?

After I left the gym and had returned home, I still felt the after feelings and thoughts of that interaction. They lasted for a long portion of the rest of the day. What really struck me was wondering what sort of inner turmoil was causing that man to react as he did. I felt sadness and sympathy for him and I promised myself to greet him with kindness next time I see him in the gym. I can’t promise I won’t purposefully crash the weights a bit louder than normal whenever he is around though.