Gyms are great places to people watch. Unfortunately, there are only very few people (and mostly men) frequenting the Novotel gym here in Palembang and I don't want to be caught watching them. They obviously keep to themselves.
The few women that I have met have been friendly but they are not regulars. Today, a new woman walked into the gym. Middle age, big hair (not done up), full face of make-up including black eyeliner, tight three quarter pants and a fitting gym top. She walked in full of confidence and obviously felt attractive. She was attractive, even though she didn't look ready to sweat it out. I'm always on the lookout for people that I could potentially make friends with so I beamed a smile over. What did I get?
A look up and down. From my shoes to my falling out ponytail, and then back to my shoes again. She did meet my eye and the corners of her mouth tilted upwards slightly. Then she just looked away. Did she look....unimpressed? I don't know. It wasn't a friendly look. Is it just me over reacting? I would have given her a second chance but then I saw this...
She ordered the trainer on duty to wipe down the bench she wanted to do sit ups on. There was no real request. Just a point of one manicured finger and 'Please wipe'. After that, towels had to be laid out all over the bench and the leg curling area. Something like 5 towels?!?! After that, no thank you or look of appreciation. Just more of that unimpressed look.
Why go through all the effort of making yourself look good when you make yourself instantly ugly with an attitude like that? I can never understand why some people feel that they need to act above everybody else. Plenty of people at the gym are rich (not me) but most don't do that.
Now, the worst part of the whole experience came when I walked past this snob in the lobby on my way out. She was ordering somebody to do something. And then I realized that she was Malaysian. I'm not saying that it would have been justified if she was Indonesian but I felt a certain embarrassment on her behalf because they all know I'm Malaysian too.
8 comments:
I used to love going to the gym to people-watch...especially the buffed-up guys trying to impress the girls and the pumped-up girls trying to get the men salivating. This is a really great post, not just because I agree with you 100%, but because you are absolutely right. I am a firm believer in politeness and civility, and it really irritates me when others can't be bothered to treat others well. It's also bad when one idiotic representative of a particular ethnic or minority group acts like an ass and so casts aspersions on all the other members of that group. I wrote about such an incident in my blog a few months back and, sadly, you can see more examples every day. Take heart: one of you is worth a dozen of Ms Instant-Ugly. And her children probably aren't as cute as Aaron, either!
Yep - some people!!?? I always tell my kids, "What goes around,comes around - be careful how you act." Isn't it the truth? See ya.
One of my many past jobs included working at a health club in an affluent part of the city. It does indeed take all kinds. I don't know who said it, but it's a great quote: "Beauty is only skin deep--ugliness goes all the way through."
I don't go to health clubs, but there must be a lot of people who just want to draw attention to themselves.
If you havent notice by now that there's this economic supremacy that Asians practice in Asia. The HKongers will always look down on the mainland chinese, the Singaporeans think they are far superior than anyone else in the region (except for maybe the HKongers which they know they can't get away with by being snotty, similarly, with the Japanese) and now, with the Malaysians, hey, we're supposedly "richer" than the Indonesians and therefore, they can act that way. You should look for opportunities to put her down. I would if I were you. Afterall, I'm known as a biatch. ;-)
The saddest part is that people that work in customer service get used to people like this. However, I still have faith that there are more nice people out there than entitlement jerks.
Interesting... you allude to it, but don't spell it out... what are the politics of identity between Malaysians and Indonesians?
There is plenty of petty politics going on between Malaysian and Indonesia. From the illegal Indonesians in Malaysia, to the haze, to the beat up Karate coach....and to that economic supremacy that Evelyn mentioned.
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