Adam

oh yeah i really feel this. getting into an activity in a public space feels like some kind of bootstrapping problem - to do it you need to know the unwritten rules, to know them you need to have someone teach you, to have someone who knows you need to be adjacent to people like that, to get to know people like that you need to do the thing... or something like that. for what it's worth i've never had big problems when i got my head in the game and just went for things i was worried about in that way, applying the trusty "we suffer more in our imaginations than in reality" rule. still, to apply this habitually i'd need to be someone who has done it a lot, for which i would need to do it when i want to, for which &c. &c... but i think this is a process in motion for me, just a pretty glacial one

I haven’t gone to the gym in twenty years or so, but…turns out you can just wander around a bit aimlessly and people mostly leave you alone? At least that was my experience…I was just at the local YMCA so it was the full spectrum of “fairly serious Gym Bros” to “soccer moms” to “dorks like me clearly at the gym for the first time”.

Also I think most gyms will happily give you an “intro to the gym” walking-around tour and answer any questions about etiquette etc.. I think gyms are pretty used to New People showing up and they try to make the onboarding easy.

(I also went with an equally-clueless friend, which was nice.)

Seriously though basically everyone did their own thing and ignored everyone else. No surprises, no challenges, no fauxs pas (at least not any that I was ever aware of having committed)