Monday Manners: Nudie Patooties

Way back when, I covered gym equipment use etiquette in a "Return to Sender" column (this was long before the advent of Monday Manners). But the equipment floor isn't the only place to be concerned about your comportment at the gym. Au contraire. You also have to mind your manners in the locker room.

Nudity is a tricky issue. Some people are simply more comfortable with it than others. But, comfort or not, it's pretty much unavoidable in a locker room. No matter how you feel about nudity, though, here are a few tips for handling it in the locker room:

Get in, get dressed, get out.
No matter how much you love your own naked body, or how much you think that the whole world needs to see it, there's really no reason to linger, naughty bits exposed to the world, and carry on an extended cell phone conversation or blow dry your hair (doesn't that burn your back a little?) or just simply stare in the mirror. I've seen people get very fidgety and uncomfortable in locker rooms because of extended periods of nudity on the parts of others present. Frankly, it doesn't phase me, but it does seem a little, well, uncouth.

Build a bridge and get over it.
Some people are painfully shy. At the gym, these people will sometimes carry their change of clothing into the lavatory stalls in the locker room. This is rude: changing clothes often takes much longer than... well, the other things you need to use the stalls for... so if you do this, you're actually preventing nature from taking its course in a timely fashion. There's really not much to fear in changing in the locker room proper: everyone in there is the same gender as you are, so there's nothing you've got that they haven't seen before. Keep that in mind, and you'll be fine.

Take your mother's advice and don't talk to strangers.
If you're standing in the locker room, and you're not wearing anything more than what your maker (and possibly your plastic surgeon) gave you, it's probably not a good idea to initiate a conversation with a complete stranger. It can make said stranger feel very uncomfortable. Likewise, if you're fully dressed, you may not want to begin a conversation with the buck-naked stranger standing at the locker next to yours. It can make said stranger feel like a piece of meat.

Eye contact, always.
In the event that you do begin speaking with the naked stranger next to you, you need to make sure your eyes stay at shoulder-level or above. It's hard, I know: you want to compare sizes or look for birthmarks or maybe you're just curious. But wandering eyes are just in bad taste. And probably not unlikely to get you kicked out of your gym.

Image via About.com.