I don’t even know! Some people react super odd about it, though. Like immediately assuming I must be Asian and then asking me how I could possibly be Asian when I don’t look it. Or asking how I could possibly have survived living somewhere where I didn’t know the language fluently. (Compared to the more normal follow-up of, “What brought your family there?”) I get some super oddball questions. I think they tend to be men who haven’t experienced much outside of their hometowns. It is like my DREAM to end up with a guy who was also raised overseas.

Yikes! Did he go to the same gym as you the entire time or did you get him into it? I’d actually really like to share the gym with a boyfriend, but yeah, if you work together and go to the same gym, and still see one another outside of both, that’s a lot of overlap.

He insisted on going, he wanted to go with me and he wanted to do CrossFit, we had been dating for two years. We went together, it was nice at first, then I was “X’s girlfriend” and not Ale. Then we broke up, and it sucked. When I asked him to leave the gym because I was there first, he said that was not an option. I was lucky to find another gym closer and nice, I’ve been there for a year, but I had to stop doing CrossFit. So I guess maybe if I dated someone and he wanted to go to the same gym I’d ask what if we breakup? Ok if we break up, you get the gym. We never discussed that. It would have been helpful.

@Ale, I’m really sorry that your situation sucked and your ex treated you horribly. I remember you telling us about that and it was atrocious.

I do want to emphasize that I’m being extremely careful, realistic, and trying to maintain low expectations about all this. That’s why I didn’t say anything about it for a week and wasn’t actually planning to. I wouldn’t even say we went on a date, though I do get the sense that we both “like” each other. And it was just one dinner. I get that, I really do. I know it’s dangerous to date where you work and I’ve never even considered it before. I would not have considered it at any other company or in any other situation. As it is, our work only very rarely overlaps (practically never) as we’ve both moved onto different teams/reporting structures since we met in January. I actually never see him unless he seeks me out or vice versa. I have and will continue to think about it and take precautions. All I’m saying is that I’ve literally been mourning the end of my last relationship for months, with the help of an excellent therapist, and this is the first time I’ve felt something for someone else and it’s nice. I’m going to enjoy it while being realistic and also prioritizing maturity and the career I’ve been working hard on for a long time. 🙂

@Copa, it’s so interesting and resonates so much with me when you talk about wanting to find a man who has lived abroad. I wasn’t raised abroad but I lived abroad for several years during college/grad school and meeting a man who has AT LEAST traveled abroad, and ideally actually lived abroad like I did, is on my “would be really REALLY nice to have” list. I find (as does my best friend’s twin sister who lived abroad for years) that the difference in maturity, both emotional and otherwise, and worldview is stunning.

For example, right now I am in some extremely frustrating and disheartening conversations with a guy friend of mine who has never left the country. He is a gun lover and subscribes to this sort of blind patriotism that is, frankly, just ignorant. He claims to be “in the middle” of politics but he’s definitely right-leaning. It is ENRAGING to try to have conversations with him about the migrant children crisis because he just does NOT get it and cannot muster up the empathy. He is a college educated professional man in his 30s with a 3 year old daughter, but this is just too much of a stretch and the underlying poisonous patriotism and white privilege has blinded him. I really believe if he had spent any time living abroad that would help, but not now. The ironic thing is we met at work (he was the closest thing I’ve ever come to dating at work, lol) and we had a “spark” for awhile but it never materialized into dating, and now I know FOR SURE if we had gotten married I would be MISERABLE (or asking for a separation) because of his lack of empathy and critical thinking abilities that have only come out because of this (and other) issue(s) in the last year or so. Tl; dr: Living abroad is priceless.

@Ale If I introduced some guy to my gym and he wouldn’t leave when asked after our break-up, I’d be upset. My gym is small even for a Crossfit gym — our classes are capped at 14 and are often way smaller. It was your gym first! I actually told my neighbor to join my gym in one of our first conversations when I learned we both like Crossfit, and I’m really glad he’s been too busy getting drunk at work to find a box in the city because I’m positive mine would be a contender for its location and super reasonable prices.

Yeah, my sister is married to a coworker too. It worked out fine for them.
I had to change gyms because he was there too. It was too much seeing him at work and then at the gym. He wouldn’t change because he had a huge discount and the location was good (I paid full price). I asked him to leave knowing that he wouldn’t afford another box. So he told me please to reconsider, because that wasn’t an option for him. I stayed for a couple more weeks and then left when the environment became too toxic for me. People were invested in our drama, even telling me things about him.
He no longer goes there because they stopped giving him a discount. That gym is super small too, but managing is just awful.