Something just recently happened to me which is still playing on my mind. I’m scared to report it to someone for not being believed or taken seriously. I’ve been going to the gym for many months now, it helps me to relax. There’s a male staff member who is often there at the time I prefer to go to the gym (in the evening). He seems quite an outspoken individual, and I’ve heard him make comments behind me, but loud enough for me to hear, such as ‘that girl always wears the same thing.’ I much prefer to speak to no one at the gym, and since I pay my membership, I have no obligation to speak to anyone there, if I so choose. However, this man behaves as if you’re being rude if you don’t make conversation, and I’ve seen him chatting to women that go to the gym at times that I go there. I’ve gotten by for many months just saying, ‘hi’ and ‘thanks’ and sometimes I try to smile so I don’t seem like I’m rude. I only go there to focus on exercising and nothing more. I prefer not to speak to people at the gym. I’m entitled to do so. Last Thursday, I went to gym in the evening. As normal, after running, I went to do some exercises on the mats. I was the only one left in this area and I was pretty worn out by this time. I have poor eyesight and I don’t wear my glasses to the gym. I recognised that the male staff member was walking across the mat area to go into a separate door that I’m not sure where it leads to. At this point I was on my second set of doing clamshell exercises where you lie on your side, and with bent knees you use your glute muscles to lift your leg up and down. As he was walking past, I remember seeing that he was looking in my direction or I had my eyes already fixed in this direction, as it helps to focus on a spot when you’re exercising. Most of the time I close my eyes to help me concentrate. I remember catching his eye, not that I can make out anyone’s expressions when I don’t have my glasses on. Already feeling uncomfortable being seen doing this exercise (one of the main reasons I got to the gym late is so I have more privacy), I maybe made a slight fake smile, like the one I usually do at the gym, so I don’t seem rude. I don’t really recall as I was out of breath and trying to finish the set. I didn’t notice him coming back past as I must have already moved onto another exercise that meant I was facing a different direction, plus I wasn’t paying attention to him or anyone else. The next thing I heard were people laughing, coming from the counter near the front of the gym, and snippets from the male staff member saying, ‘Making eye contact.. as if you’d get turned on, do you know what I mean?’ And another girls voice laughing loudly and saying, ‘Eww, and her face would have been all sweaty.’ I finished exercising. I walked past the counter to get out of the gym, and vaguely said, ‘Cheers’. The girl seemed to fall silent, and with a bitchy, [redacted by administrator] accent I heard, ‘See ya later!’, from the male staff. I thought nothing much of it at the time, as it’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with people behaving spitefully towards me, or behind me. And it’s not the first time people have spread rumours about me or embellished certain situations to cause me humiliation. These people don’t matter. However, in the past few days since, I’ve been feeling icky, and uncomfortable, and too intimidated to go back to the gym. The sexual insinuation part of this makes me feel really weird and kind of degraded and repulsed. I feel a bit sick when I think about it. Especially as there is absolutely no way I would ever do what the male staff member insinuated. I just wanted to go to the gym and get out of there, worn out, and as fast as possible, as always. But now it makes me think that every time I’ve been doing those exercises, people who might have seen me insinuated it as sexual. That makes me feel really embarrassed and like I never want to do them at the gym ever again (but that’s limiting as I don’t own the equipment outside of the gym). I don’t know if the male staff member genuinely thought that I was trying to make some kind subtle advances on him, or if he took something that clearly wasn’t, to purposely make me feel uncomfortable and like it’s hostile environment for me and I’m not welcome there. I’d like to make a complaint to the manager, but I can’t find contact details for them and I’m scared of seeming petit or worse, being told I’m to blame. If it was an isolated event perhaps I’d feel more like it was my fault, but the way this man has behaved towards me before makes me feel strongly that he was looking for an opportunity to intimidate me. Writing this I feel like I’m having to defend myself, like someone’s already telling me I’m wrong. There are many different ways to harass people.