There are good ways of marketing your gym classes to men. Telling them that taking your class is a great way to pick up the ladies is not one of them.
ClassPass, a startup that provides a monthly membership for people who want to take classes at different gyms around their city, published a blog post titled “I Asked a Girl Out in Class And….” The post was intended to convince other dudes that it’s perfectly chill to sign up for ClassPass in order to meet women.
And for you single bros out there, where better to meet a lady than at a fitness class? Between the sweat, endorphins and the potential for less clothing than usual, the stage is set for us guys to make your move. [emphasis added]
Brian Levine, the author of the post and an employee at ClassPass, apparently doesn’t understand that by encouraging his “single bros” to join the service to find dates, he’s encouraging women to stay as far away from it as possible.
Let’s be honest: Many women don’t like being hit on by men at the gym. When we ladies are sweaty and hyper-focused on weight training, we generally don’t enjoy being harassed by a strange dude who gives us unsolicited advice about protein shakes, or tries to talk to us about how many reps we’re doing. In fact, harassment at the gym drives many women to forego the activity altogether, or switch locations and hope there are less thirsty randos.
In his post, Levine describes how he waited for a woman in the lobby of his gym, while he was pretending to look at workout clothes. Astonishingly, Levine says the woman accepted his offer for a date, which could very well be the beginning of the plot of a Lifetime chick flick.
The Daily Dot has reached out to ClassPass to figure out why the startup is using pickup artist tactics to advertise, and we’ll update the post when we hear back. But it’s unfortunate ClassPass can’t seem to find a better way to get men to sign up for its service, other than pandering to their sex drives.
Photo via Greg Westfall/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)