At the beginning of this year a new personal trainer (25 yo as indicated by her bio at the gym webpage) started working at the gym I attend regularly. Very cute and attractive and I noticed that each time I was working out she was making eye contact with me very frequently. It was very flattering, that for sure. however I decided not to go along with the cues. On purpose. I was going through a psychotherapy and didn’t want to interfere with the process so I kept ignoring the girl. Just some eye contact and simple “hi”.

As I was done with the therapy, few weeks ago I started thinking about approaching the girl. A bit complicated task as I noticed she was always busy with her clients and I didn’t want to appear as a rude guy. So I simply asked at the reception to schedule some training sessions with her. They gave me her number and I schedule the sessions directly with her. We did two sessions, which BTW were very professional and I really did learn something useful. Few hours after the second session I simply texted her whether she likes going to a theatre. Nothing else, just a plain question even without emojis. She never replied but the message status was “Read”. For me it simply meant “no/not interested” so I just moved on. A week later as I finished my workouts I approached her kindly during the session with the client and asked politely whether she got my message at all. I was simply curious, that’s it. Her reaction really surprised me. She almost exploded and answered really at loud so everyone at the gym could hear that: “I doesn’t answer such messages as they are not adequate to my profession!!!”. I was like WTF just happened and realised there is no point in discussing that. I turned around and simply left the gym after being publicly humiliated.

The very next day I was very early at the gym and turned out she was there too doing here workouts. Our machines were next to each other but we simply pretended we don’t see each other at all. There was also another behaviour which surprised me again. For the first time since she was working there she was actively and ostensibly initiating conversations with other guys who she completely ignored for the past several months. I felt like I was observing some twisted mind games done by a girl in a teenage romantic comedy.

I was thinking about politely confronting her by trying to ask he why did she react in a such overblown way. But it’s rather difficult as she usually works with the clients and there are always some people around. I don’t want to do any kind of drama which may affect her work at the gym. I texted her a short and polite message that instead doing a drama in front of all clients at the gym she could simply reply “no, thank you”. She never responded.

BTW - I don’t think the age difference might be a factor. Last year in Nov and Dec to check my dating market value I attended several speed datings and girls always thought I was at most 33.

The post is mostly #truthofmychest but maybe you can give me some insights as I feel extremely confused as this was a first time a girl reacted in such way to my signs of interests.

Full disclosure - I haven’t dated at all for the past three years (maybe even a bit more). It was due to several factors - clinical depression+GAD (hence the psychotherapy) and then also COVID happened. Despite feeling lonely it was entirely a conscious decision not to pursue ANY kind of relationship with a girl in order not to make someone life’s miserable.

As soon as I thought I’m ready to date again, especially that seemingly there was clearly somebody interested in me, it turned out my attempt resulted in a minor disaster which left me confused and anxious. Not sure what to do with this now and how to get closure in order cleanly move on. Is my internal radar broken due to lack of experience in the past three years, was I delusional and narcissistic or was the girl’s reaction atypical and I can absolve myself?

PS: She is not single - her Tinder profile popped up for me two days ago.

PS2: Not a native English speaker so forgive me if some sentences may appear unclear or confusing!