In a viral TikTok video, a man shares how less than ten minutes after talking to a woman at the gym, he got kicked out for harassment. He says he wasn’t expecting that reaction.
TikToker Trevor Abney (@itstrevorabney) starts off the video with the common dating advice that the worst that can happen when you attempt to approach a person you’re interested in is that they say “no.”
Abney quickly learned that the approach can lead to more than just a “no.”
He explained that he was at the gym and saw an attractive woman that he wanted to approach. He describes her as “partially Asian” and says he likes Asian women, which raises a red flag given the way Asian women have been fetishized and the dangers this can pose to them.
Abney continues, stating that he’s 24 years old and the woman appeared to be in her mid-30s or 40s. As they were both working out, Abney initially hesitated to approach her and waited until she was done and moved to another area to stretch.
While Abney’s audience was largely supportive of his approach in the comment section, it’s important to note that women almost universally experience a degree of sexual harassment by men. When it happens in a space they frequent, like the gym or bus, it can make things not only uncomfortable for the woman but can be potentially dangerous given that some men react violently—from hurdling insults to physical harm—when women reject them.
Before launching into the incident, Abney states he hasn’t approached a woman at the gym in “years.”
“I’m like, ‘What the hell.’ This woman is very attractive so I’m gonna go say hi. The worst thing she can do is say, ‘No,’” Abney reasons.
He walks up to the woman who’s wearing headphones and asks her name.
“I sh*t you not, she gave me the dirtiest look of all time,” Abney says.
The woman told Abney she was married, so he laughed it off, apologized, and walked away.
Five minutes later, gym employees tell Abney that they’ve had multiple reports of him harassing women in the gym and tell him he needs to leave for the night. While they stated that they saw the interaction on the cameras and “it wasn’t a big deal,” they still needed to take action, given how upset the woman was.
“Slowly, the worst she can say is no is becoming way worse,” Abney argues.
When Abney walks out of the gym, he’s confronted by her husband, who’s parked right outside and yelling at Abney to come over to him. Abney instead ignored the man and walked to his car where he was filming the video with the husband still in the general vicinity.
The video has more than 360,000 views and nearly 1,500 comments as of Thursday morning.
The video is to be taken with a bit of skepticism given that Abney’s bio describes his page as being “mostly satire,” so it’s difficult to say with certainty what on his page are lived experiences versus what is inflated for views.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Abney via Instagram direct message.
