...Neanderthal Man is alive and well. Or should I say the Jerktastic Misogynist instead?

So, I'm working on the ab benches - there's a row of 6 of them - and finish up. I notice that there's a guy working on the one at the end of the row next to the weighted ab bench (this would be the #6, all the others aren't weighted).

I get on the weighted bench, set it for 5 pounds and start crunching away. The guy next to me is grunting a little. He's not in bad shape, but could use a regular workout schedule. Hey, couldn't we all.

After a few more reps by me - at this point I'm up to 30, in a resting period and contemplating if I should raise the poundage to 10 - he speaks. "Leave that machine to a Real Man" he says (emphasis his).

I blink. I respond and emphasize back: "A Real Man wouldn't attempt to belittle a woman working on this machine." I finish 5 more reps, wipe it down and walk away. I wish, in retrospect, that I had said it a little louder because all around us on the machines were women. He didn't stay on that bench much longer, I noticed.

When I told DH he made me smile before telling me to breathe and let it go - he said that he would go show this real man how to do situps, on a reverse incline bench with a 25 pound weight held on his chest. Before I smiled I told him that I should have showed him how to really do crunches, since I had just finished 340 of them before getting on the weighted bench.

Yes, 340 crunches. I usually do about 300 now with every workout. I have abs. I still have a small pooch at the tummy but I am clearly getting definition now. And I'd just finished 1.75 miles on the treadmill, with 1.5 of that at a 5 mile running pace. I was flying high until King Jerkoff opened his mouth.

Why do some guys still think like that? It's just wrong. I sit here and while I don't work the free weights, it's clear that I put significant sweat equity into my workouts (pun most definitely intended).

Even so, I didn't let him ruin my day. I could do more crunches than he could, I could do them without grunting, and I'll bet that I can do more at the rowing machine, and the weight assisted chin up/bar dip station than he can.

So there.