Something unusual happened to me today after my morning workout at the gym. I noticed a new guy working out. He was wearing jeans and not really sweating much but he was lifting respectable weight and appeared to know what he was doing, but he seemed slightly out of place. He said good morning to me and I reciprocated. No big deal. He later introduced himself and we started talking in between our sets. He was a friendly guy but something just didn’t seem quite right about him. Was he gay? He sure didn’t seem gay by any known characteristic I would associate with someone being gay. After I finished my workout and was about to leave he came over to me and said “So you take care of your physical self here at the gym but what do you do to take care of your spiritual self?”

Oh no.

I just knew what the next few words were going to be out of his mouth. Yes, he was trying to sell me his religion. And here I thought he was just a nice guy with no hidden agenda. Now if there ever was a sure fire way to erode the faith I have in people to just be nice without the need to change them or sell them something, this was it. So we went a few rounds of him trying to convince me with his dogma and bible quotations and I tried to get him to show me who he was and not just keep regurgitating what he had read or what someone had told him. Maybe I got through to him, but I doubt it. Eventually I just had to end the conversation and leave.