I was inadvertently a jerk to my neighbor

[RiverRunning]

I live in an apartment complex. Our complex also has a small gym, so if I don't have time to run to the gym I actually pay for, I'll stop in at the complex gym. The machines are often arranged very close together. I was on a machine when a guy asked me if he could get on the one next to me. I smiled and told him sure - it was an unusual question - and then he said, "I just didn't want to invade your personal space bubble."

 

It IS kind of close, but I wasn't going to tell the guy he couldn't get on. We talked for maybe 30 more seconds and that was that. He finished before me and seemed to idle around the gym a little while doing nothing - maybe 5 or 10 minutes - before he took off.

 

The next day, I pulled up to the trash bin at our complex, which is in a little turn-around. It's not uncommon for people to drive like jerks in my complex. Some guy pulled up behind me and beeped. I don't know anyone at my apartment, so I figured he was 'beeping' at me because he was being an impatient jerk. I just stared at him, he got out of the car - I didn't recognize him - and said, "Maybe I overdid it."

 

It was a bad day already, and the last thing I wanted was to cave in to a jerk. I told him, "Just a bit," got into my car and headed out.

 

The scenario kept replaying in my mind: he seemed familiar. And then it dawned on me: Gym guy and garbage guy (haha), I'm pretty certain, were the same guy. He wasn't honking to be a jerk and for me to get out of his way - but honking because he recognized me.

 

I feel like such an ass. I'm usually very passive and laidback, but I get so frustrated with the way people here drive that it felt good in that moment to be a little jerk-ish to someone I believed to be a jerk.

 

Now the apology. I'm afraid that going to the gym and asking any really athletic guy who looks like him, "Have we talked before?" or "Were you the guy who asked if he could get on the machine next to me, and then beeped at me when I was taking out the garbage?" seems like a blatant come-on.

 

I'll try to go to the gym around the same time again throughout the week and see if I find him again. He seemed like a nice, albeit socially awkward guy - ahh, my type. I hope it's not too late to salvage it.

 

I just wish when he got out of the car he had said, "Nice to see you again" to tip me off to the fact that we had met before. I thought his playful line seemed a little odd for someone who was trying to be a jerk after the fact, but at the time I thought nothing of it.

 

Anybody had a similar experience?

[Oxy Moronovich]

Just tell him what you typed. You didn't recognize him and thought he was a stranger wanting something else, instead of a familiar face trying to introduce himself.