I wasn’t a refuser, but only because I couldn’t tolerate getting an F in an subject. I really really wanted to refuse because -
- I found every gym activity stupid, pointless, and inapplicable to anything in my life. If it were supervised and structured fitness training, maybe it was justifiable, but it was just shit like how to play basketball, how to play football, how to wrestle, etc. If I wanted to be in a sport, I’d have already joined one of the damned sports teams. High school is too late to be picking that crap up.=
- I was shy about my undeveloped body as a teenager
- As a quasi-nerd, I had to do a lot of bullshit macho posturing to avoid getting bullied in the locker room. I succeeded, but again, WTF is the point of that for someone whose life plan doesn’t involve being naked around threatening men?
- I was just not into showering and re-grooming myself at school. I have oddball hair that takes a bit of wrangling and drying to make it presentable, and I couldn’t manage that in the ~3 allowed minutes without risking being late to my next class.
- Carrying around stinky sweaty clothes in a bag… whatever
- High school is already a hypercompetitive environment where everybody is sizing everybody up. I was fit, but uncoordinated. I wasn’t really interested in being known as the kid who was never going to make a free throw.
In conclusion, gym is stupid and ought to have been optional, as it was presented in my school system.