This Woman Demanded a Stranger Move Treadmills So She Could Run Next to Her Friends, and the Entitlement is Sweaty

The gym is supposed to be a sanctuary. It is a place where we go to sweat out our demons, listen to music at unsafe volumes, and avoid making eye contact with other human beings at all costs. There is a sacred, unspoken social contract in the weight room and the cardio deck. You wipe down your machine, you do not hog the equipment, and you absolutely do not interrupt someone in the middle of their workout unless the building is actively on fire.

But apparently, a group of friends at a university gym decided that those rules did not apply to them. One student on Reddit shared a story about a gym encounter that reeks of “main character syndrome” so strong you can smell it over the locker room funk. The OP was minding their own business on a treadmill, getting their steps in, when they were approached by a woman who evidently thought the gym was her own personal living room.

The setup is important here. The gym is small. It has eight treadmills, but because university equipment is always held together by duct tape and prayers, two of them were out of order. This created a bit of a seating chart puzzle. The OP was on the third machine in a row. The woman’s two friends hopped on the available machines nearby, but there was a gap. And that gap was the OP.

Instead of just taking an open machine a few feet away, the woman marched up to the OP. She didn’t ask nicely. She didn’t apologize for the interruption. She simply announced, “Hey I need that treadmill.”

I have to pause right here. “I need that treadmill.” Not “could I please,” not “would you mind.” Just a demand. As if the OP was a placeholder she could just swipe left on. The OP, rightly confused, pointed out that there were plenty of other open machines. But that wasn’t good enough for this social butterfly. She needed that specific spot because she refused to exercise unless she was physically adjacent to her besties.

The audacity is truly something to behold. When the OP asked “and?” after she explained she wanted to be with her friends, she doubled down. She basically admitted that her social life was more important than the OP’s workout. She argued that since there were other machines open, the OP should be the one to move.

Let us look at that logic for a second. There are open machines. She wants a machine. Instead of walking her legs over to the empty one, she demands the person who is already moving to stop, wipe down their equipment, gather their water bottle and phone, and move to a new spot. All so she doesn’t have to shout her conversation across a three-foot gap.

The OP delivered the only acceptable response in this situation. “I’m declining to move.” It is a beautiful sentence. It is firm. It is polite. It is final. The OP correctly identified that the woman was the one making it an issue. They were in the middle of a workout. They had “no obligation to move.” They were there first. End of discussion.

But the friends couldn’t handle the rejection. They decided that if they couldn’t run in a perfect, synchronized line like the Rockettes, they wouldn’t run at all. They stopped their workout before it even began and stormed out. And, of course, they had to throw a parting shot, calling the OP a “jerk” on the way out.

So, is the OP the ahole? Absolutely not. N-T-A. The gym is not a coffee shop. You are there to work out, not to hold hands. If you need to be glued to your friends’ hips to function, go for a run in the park. Demanding a stranger interrupt their rhythm just so you can gossip in stereo is the height of entitlement. You didn’t ruin their workout; you just ruined their power trip.