Have you ever felt like someone was watching you? I did the other day at the gym. At first I thought maybe I was singing out loud. That’s certainly a possibility — in order to be motivational, my playlist has all the hard-bumping tunes that either make me want to move my lips or hips. But that wasn’t it.

The treadmills and other cardio machines are facing televisions, and behind those is a mirrored wall. I looked more closely into the mirror and saw multiple pairs of eyes trained on me as I jogged on the treadmill. After seeing where the eyes were locked, it dawned on me — these were straight men! And they were watching to see if my bouncing breasts were either going to escape confinement or knock me out.

It may sound strange that I find straight men being at the gym a novel concept. All summer, I’ve only gone to the SoHo, Meatpacking and Chelsea location. So it IS an unusual experience for me to find more than 5 hetero men at the gym at once.

This particular day, I had gone to a different location because I planned to meet friends for margaritas in midtown after my workout. (Yes, I planned to rehydrate with margaritas. I’m sure this is approved under the most popular of-the-moment nutrition trends).

After this discovery, I decided to break out of my box and fully explore my gym membership by trying other locations. The next day I visited an uptown location (near my favorite cupcake place. You really should have carbs before a workout).

I headed toward the locker room. Sniff, sniff. That was a familiar smell. No, not a funky locker room smell. Equinox is fastidiously clean. It was the smell of chlorine! There was a pool there! Unbelievable. All this time, I could have been taking advantage of pool workouts.

Two visits and I’d hit gold! Unfortunately, I only have a few more weeks before my membership expires. But until it does, I’m going to keep exploring. No telling what else I’ll find!