I opened my mouth

I never speak to anyone in the gym for years, including the trainers. 7 months back, I saw a 35-ish old bro struggling to finish the rep, so I spotted him (I am already weak af). He told me thank you, and I went ahead with my own workouts. I took about 40 minutes to gain courage to tell him, “You can ask me if you have a doubt regarding your workout form.” That’s the first time I spoke to someone in the gym. I tell “illa bro”(no bro) to whoever asks me if I am using the machine. Apart from that, I never open my mouth.

So the next day, I was training legs, and he asked me if he could join me. Usually, I am the only one in the gym because I go at really odd times. We trained together that day and he asked me if he could train along with me. I would run through different workout plan which I programmed for him. This is my first actual adult friendship after COVID. Every day, I started sharing about my daily challenges, mental barriers, how my life is going downhill and he would constantly give me advice based on his experience.

He would talk about me to his family, so his family (wife and 2 Montessori kids) became my acquaintances as well. So now I knew four. I sit every day looking at my ceiling, and one day he called me to a sports complex nearby where he introduced me to a dozen people from his apartment. So I started going to badminton every day and started interacting with them. One guy in that badminton group asked me to join them to play cricket in their apartment. So by going to play there, I got introduced to even more people.

More importantly, I have never been consistent in the gym. Thats the reason why I look as if i’ve never weight trained. For the first time after meeting him, I feel I am a lot more consistent just so that I could meet and chat with him. I am able to distract and slightly get better from the truckload of issues just because of me interacting with these folks. Please speak out. Meet new people, involve yourself in small talks, make new friends anyways you can always walk away if your vibe doesn’t match. Yes, I am still struggling every single day, I have a ton of issues to sort out, but at least I am a bit better now and it’s all because of me thinking for 40 min and gaining courage to opem my mouth and telling him, “You can ask me if you have a doubt regarding your workout form.”