This Isn't A Freakin' Peepshow!

It happened. I guess I figured something like it would eventually. I suppose if you spend enough time in the gym, it's bound to occur sooner or later. Oh, the violation of it all. But let me begin with the key drop.

I was showering in a stall at your friendly neighborhood gym, and I turned off my water and stepped to the door of my stall to whip my towel off the hook. In the process, my locker keys were flung off of the hook as well and clinked onto the floor slightly into the next stall over, which was fortunately vacant. As I reached a few inches under the dividing wall to retrieve my fallen keyring, feet entered the stall and paused slightly before stepping in. I hung my keys back up and started toweling off.

In the stall next to me, I heard the shower start. But as I was drying my undercarriage, I caught something in the corner of my eye. As I glanced over to see what was up, the upside-down top of my neighbor's head, from the tops of the eyes up, pulls away from underneath the divider. And not all that quickly, either, like he wanted to be caught. Really? Are you serious? Dude, were you just bent over peeking underneath the wall at me? You've gotta be kidding. I looked up at the door of my shower stall with a bewildered, "what the @#$% was that?" expression.

I finished toweling off and quickly went back to my locker to dowse myself in rubbing alcohol. Or just get dressed really fast. There was only one person in the showers besides me, so when he came out, I knew exactly who the voyeur was. As he emerged, I already had my pants on (thankfully) and shot him a glance to say, "Dude, not cool." But I couldn't figure out whether to vomit or laugh at the absurdity. This shifty-looking but otherwise conservative, normal-looking man had just peeped at me in the shower in such an obvious and childish way.

We were near each other's lockers, and instead of facing his locker, or facing directly away, or facing sideways, he faced diagonally directly towards me as he dried off. I made a point not to even glance in his direction to avoid giving him his jollies. The SPORTS show on the TV was vastly more enticing than that creepiness so blatantly flaunted in front of me.

OK, so besides venting, what's my point in posting this? I asked myself: would it have been a different experience if he'd been a hot, young guy? I mean, yeah it would've been weird, but I paused when a friend asked, "Would you have been flattered if he had been a young, hot guy?" I had to wonder. Might I have been tempted to flirt back or return the attention? Might I have been more tempted to look when he was flaunting himself? But I think I can honestly say no, it still would've been decidedly non-flattering. Weird is weird, cheap is cheap, and creepy is creepy. Ew.

Confession time: there've been times when I felt urges to do stuff like peek under shower stall dividers. When you know the person next to you is a hottie, and the full view is right there, two feet away from you, blocked only by a thin wall, it would be so easy... I mean, I could pawn it off on dropping my soap, or my keys, or...oh no. Is that what he thought? Whatever the temptations I've felt, I'm so glad I never did peek like that. It's creepy enough to have thought it, but to actually have done it is a whole other thing.

I'm going to hold on tighter to my keys in the future 'cause apparently dropping them in the next stall over is some kind of invitation. Fetch.