I received a wonderful compliment from Stephanie yesterday – she told me that she admires my committment to fitness.
This said during the same day that I a) had committment on my mind, (namely, people who commit to things and then disappoint) and b) started a new workout journey – boot camp classes at this fitness studio.
I have to confess: yesterday was tough for me.
Here’s the deal: Amazon local was running a special – $25 for a month of unlimited boot camp classes at Gunn’s. It sounded great, with one glitch – the best timing for the classes for my schedule would be to show up at 6 a.m., three days a week. I’m not exactly a “wake up before dawn to work out” kind of person. So much so that I have even run some of my marathon training runs (not the long ones, of course) during the heat of the day in the middle of summer. I call it “a good challenge” but really it’s “I’m too lazy to get up at 5 a.m.”
So, I wanted to do the deal. But I know myself and I know a month of waking up early would require something big. So I asked three of my favorite workout partners if they’d like to join me for a month of pre-dawn madness. Two of them politely declined, citing scheduling conflicts and a lack of desire. I totally respect that and was grateful for the directness. The third friend said he’d think about it, then hemmed and hawed about it for a few days. I got a slight impression I was being blown off, so I had actually written off the deal in my mind – I was ready to move on to something else, something that someone would want to do with me. Even bought a zoomba deal with Meghan.
But then my friend came back and said he was “in”. What a surprise! I wasn’t going to tell him nevermind, as I felt that would be rude. So if he was in, I was in. So, a month of 6 a.m. workouts – I could do this. Knowing he’d be there with me, I could do this.
He had me sign us both up while he was on the phone with me, so I bought mine first, then his. And then something weird happened – moments after I told him the deal had been bought, he started backpedaling. Saying he really needed to figure out his workout schedule and it was only $25 and maybe he was just buying it to get me off his back, etc. I was confused – I actually wasn’t on his back about doing it at all – if anything, I was simply pushing him to give me a definitive answer. But, I chose to ignore this red flag – surely he wouldn’t have us waste $50 if he didn’t have any intention of going, right?
Wrong.
In the days that followed, I tried to ask him when he wanted to start. I started getting nonanswers again. I had originally suggested February or March. I took a look at my schedule and realized if I planned my hot yoga classes right, I could actually start on Jan. 23. When I asked him about it … I got crickets chirping. Finally, after days of asking with no response, I got a “What happened to February or March?” I responded that I’d be happy to stick to our original plan if that works better for him, but I just needed an answer of some sort – so that I could plan my workout schedule around his (which I was happy to do.) Again, I got nothing. The absolute silence about the whole thing really hurt my feelings – he would respond if I would text him about other things, but would flat-out ignore me if I asked about boot camp. What I didn’t want was to push it off until February or March only to be blown off. But I also didn’t want to start without him on January 23 if he actually did intend to do it with me, because then I would be rude to him. I just needed to know one way or the other!
A few days ago, he finally confessed his real issue: he’d just decided to sign up for a running race that was requiring a lot training. The race was mid-February, and he just wasn’t sure he’d have time to do the boot camp before then. I took a look at his training schedule and agreed with him. I asked him if it would work better for him if we started boot camp in mid-February, after the race. Again, I got no real answer, just a bunch of hemming and hawing. He told me he was training for an even bigger race in April, so I knew even as I asked the question that if I was relying on him to show up with me, I would be sadly disappointed. The truth is, if he had just told me no at the beginning, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Clearly, he should have just said no when I asked him the first time. And if he committed to me then he shouldn’t have committed to the race.
So I made one last-ditch effort: I asked him to contact Regina Gunn and ask her what she recommends. She works with runners all the time, so perhaps she’d have a suggestion for him – either “don’t do it at the same time” or “do it and I’ll cater your workout to your running schedule and make you an even better runner.” Either way, at least we’d have an answer – I was getting very frustrated by this point, as I was trying so hard to be flexible but I was feeling as if my time was being disrespected. He agreed to that and seemed happy with the solution. Finally, a conclusion.
When I texted him two days later on Friday (boot camp was to begin on Monday) to ask what Regina had said, I got a response of “I haven’t talked to anyone about anything.”
At that point, I was done. I love this friend dearly, he is one of my closest friends, but I will never again invite him to something that either a) someone else isn’t already doing with me or b) I’m not willing to do alone.
