Most Planet Fitness locations will give you a free one-day pass to try out the gym, so you could shower there.
For what it’s worth: I strongly prefer having a hot shower every morning. I don’t know if I would say that I “absolutely need” it, but if I can’t get one, I feel kind of gross all day, with bad bed-head.
That said, back in February, we had a serious issue with the sewer drains, and we were limited to minimal water usage (i.e., flush the toilets once or twice a day, no showers) for over a week, until the plumbers were able to diagnose and fix the issue. We have some good friends who live a block away, and we borrowed their bathroom for a shower every couple of days, but otherwise, it was sponge baths, and baby wipes for the body parts which needed extra attention, and wearing a baseball cap to cover the messy hair. No, it wasn’t ideal, and I still felt gross, but I muddled through.
Gym’s don’t have a free trial? I thought they did.
Your friend is being a jerk about this. I would think there is some other underlying reason than a serious objection to using his shower. No idea what that might be though.
I am probably in the minority opinion here, but nobody owes you the use of facilities in their home, or an explanation for the denial.
I do find it a reasonable request, and I find it weird that a “friend” wouldn’t help you out. I would let you take a shower at my house, and I don’t even know you. But you asked, they refused, and that should be the end of it.
However FWIW, I’ve had occasions where I needed to be an unexplained jerk, and the real explanation was that my wife wouldn’t support the thing being asked. You just never know what’s going on with people.
This is the very first thing I thought.
On the other hand, if this were the case, he’d probably just say, “sorry, the wife says no” and that would be that.
I’m now curious about why the friend who lives five minutes away has used your shower. My theory now is that it was because he was hiding something from his wife, and he doesn’t want it to slip that he’s returning the favor.
Anyway, regardless of the explanation, the healthy and mature thing for you to do is just let it go.
I’m still thinking of the logistics of fulfilling the request.
If someone made that request of me, I’d probably go with it, as I try to be nice to people, but it would be me going out of my way to accommodate it.
My bathroom is in use for a substantial amount of the time between when I wake up and when I leave for work. Allowing a friend to come over and use it means either waking up early, going to work late, or trusting them with a key and allowing them to be there when I’m not home.
The fact that your friend showered at your place before but won’t let you in return, and even said “have fun being stinky” shows this is no friend at all. That’s unfairness + rudeness.
I agree it adds some hassle but it is very short term (2-3 days). A friend shouldn’t mind. Going out of your way to help is part of being a friend (e.g. they call you from a bar drunk asking for a ride). The inconvenience can be dealt with without much fuss I would think.
I’ll second those asking for more context on him having showered at your house in the past. Was he staying the night, having work done at his house, fell into an open sewer grate on his way to an important job interview near your house, etc.? To be clear, I think he’s being an asshole regardless but this might help us judge degrees of assholery.
You’re a better person than I am if you can let this go, particularly after “Have fun being stinky.”
That was my first thought when I read the title, so all the ‘He’s weird, he’s a jerk, he’s no friend’ might be just piling on a guy who’s trying to keep peace at home.
I’d see the first text, then almost say yes, but I’d ask my wife first. And she’d give me A Look…
Which would translate as “One of your sketchy friends is going to show up at our house all sweaty and smelling bad? And then get naked in our private domicile? And use our soap… I’ll have to replace that after he’s gone… And then the shower’ll have to be cleaned a couple of times. WHAT?!? He’d come BACK and do this all over again? Who would inconven… oh, this is the guy who put you down because you only have one hat, right? Well, no way!”
Yeah, that particular line was gratuitous and a bit beyond simple rudeness. I can chalk it up as unnecessary ball busting/teasing depending on the nature of our relationship, but I can’t really see any of my friends doing that, to be honest, after the refusal of a favor.
Probably isn’t the biggest deal but using a free trial to use the shower facilities with absolutely no intention of signing up is low key scummy behavior. These free trials almost always come with a required sales pitch and facilities walk through which will be awkward and probably require some lying. Asking directly is probably a better bet here, though personally just being dirty for a few days won’t kill you. That’s the route I’d take.
brings to mind this song
So I go down the streets
Down to my good friend’s house
I said look man I’m outdoors you know
Can I stay with you maybe a couple days?
He said let me go and ask my wife
He come out of the house
I could see it in his face
I know that was no
He said I don’t know man ah she kinda funny, you know
I said I know, everybody funny, now you funny too
Maybe the last line should be “Everybody stinky, now you stinky too”…
Why do you think it’s his wife who is crazy and unreasonable, and not him? He’s the one who was weird about hats.
I could buy that he’s trying to hide something from his wife. But if you are debating whether shitty friend is weird or random woman you know nothing about is weird, I’m going with shitty friend.
Your friend has every right to refuse you showering facilities at his house, but the “have fun being stinky” line is just him being an asshole.
Was he really weird in the hat thread, though? He just said he only owned one hat. And I could totally see not wanting to lend a hat out, even if I may think it’s a little bit odd. It was a baseball cap, from what I’ve quickly read, and people sweat in caps, so may find it weird. Like you can use my toothbrush, I don’t care, but most people (in my experience) are squicked out by that. I can see the same thing about somebody else sweating in your cap.
I do agree, though, where the fuck does the wife come into this? That seems like a complete non sequitur to me.
Maybe promise your friend that you promise not to shove his toothbrush up your butt, like you did last time you were in his bathroom.
That should solve the problem of the friendship pretty quickly.
I’m gonna repeat this, maybe I buried it the first time.
The guy might have a pretty good reason he doesn’t want you at his house, and it also could explain why he wanted to use your shower in the past. He may be renting out his place on Airbnb or something like that. He doesn’t want you to know, maybe because he doesn’t want to explain to you that he has to do because he needs the money or maybe he’s violating a lease or local codes or something, but he doesn’t want to explain it to you, or tell you that’s why he needed to use your shower sometimes.
OP, I wrote that directly to you though I’m sure you know the answers to a lot of the details I brought into question. So maybe you can rule that out right away. There still could be other reasons why he doesn’t want you at his house though. And some of them could be reasons you could accept if you knew the whole story.