a question of gym etiquette (am i an asshole or just really shy?)

about three times a week i run into the same chick at the gym at my job. i don't know her, she works for one of the other companies in the building. but apparently we have a similar lunch schedule that allows us to do the gym thing at about 2pm. i know nothing at all about her but yet i see her many times a week and many times we're the only two in the gym. she's usually on an elliptical machine that's only about 10-15 ft away from me while i'm on a treadmill.

so there's this slight awkwardness (self imposed, totally not blaming her) i feel sometimes because i find it odd that we'll be the only two in the whole gym and yet we never say a word to each other. and it's probably due to my lack of experience when it comes to gyms, cuz i only started using the gym a couple years ago and until this chick from a different company came along, i was almost always by myself from 2pm-3pm in the gym (which is kinda nice, especially if you listen to punk rock while exercising and like to scream lyrics at the top of your lungs). 

we've gotten this far without talking... i'd say it's been a few months now since she started coming around. and usually we get by cuz i'll have my earbuds in. at first she was a tv watcher. so i'd listen to my music totally lost in my own world and she'd watch whatever and it'd make no difference to me cuz i can't hear the tv over my music.

then she recently changed up her style. she started coming in with earbuds. so the two of us would be in the gym and to anyone else it'd seem like two people exercising in silence, but not to us. we were both lost in our own separate worlds.

just the other day i walked into the gym and she was already there. she had switched up her style once more. now she's listening to music on her phone without earbuds. so i can clearly hear what she's listening to. this sort of thing usually wouldn't make any kind of difference since i rock earbuds anyways. but on this one day i had left my earbuds upstairs in my office, and i was already changed and ready to go by the time i realized so i figured i'd just exercise as is.

so i hit the treadmill and she's on that same elliptical machine. and for the first time we talk. it was brief. she looks over at me and says to me politely, "hey, do you want me to put my ear buds in?"

i didn't wanna be an ass. she was nice enough to offer and i was gonna be nice enough not to fuck up her routine. so i told her, "no, that's okay. i'll be fine. i can adapt." 

now as soon as i said the words, "i can adapt," i felt like an asshole. i just felt like it was a really stupid thing to say. i could've just left it at, "no, that's okay." and i guess i'm guilty of over thinking this one, but i just felt like an ass at that moment. and when i think back on it, i still feel like an ass.

and as soon as i replied to her, we both went back to silence. for about the next 20 minutes we exercised to the sounds of the music coming out of her phone (she seems to be a fan of radio friendly country music). 

here's my real issue. i don't know gym etiquette. i probably should've said, "hey," or given her some kinda simple greeting a long time ago. what's the harm in it? but i'm kinda shy and i also don't wanna come across as some creep. cuz there's also a part of me that thinks everyone just wants to be left alone in the gym so i should understand that and let her, or anyone else in the gym, be.

i can't help but wonder what she thinks. i hope she doesn't think i'm some kind of asshole. but i'll never know. these are things i can't bring up. i can't walk into the gym on monday and say, "hey, do you think i'm an asshole?" we just don't have that kinda communication going on.