I want to do two things at the gym: work out in peace and tan in the buff.

The second one is going pretty well. They have a tanning area where you can lock out the whole world and step into little, potentially cancer-causing booths for 12 minutes. I might be a dead fat person by 50, but I'll be a tan, dead fat person. Plus those 12 minutes away from people and my cell phone are pure heaven.

My first goal is a little more complicated because I'm forced to work out with the general populace, much of that being strange men who, for some bizarre reason of late, have taken a great interest in my workouts and appearance.

It actually was a woman who butted in on my workout first. She wanted to let me know that, for every dumbbell lift I did to my side, I needed to do one to my front to even it out so that I'd work my entire bicep and it would be symmetrical.

Never mind that I'm paying $85 an hour for a guy to tell me how to work my bicep -- and everything else on me. And never mind that I haven't even seen my bicep since 1989.

At least her observation wasn't outwardly offensive.

She had my best interests at heart and was talking to me like I understood the intricacies of the human body and how to tone it.

But the next guy was George, who told me he's been working out at gyms for more than 30 years. From the looks of things, another 30 might do the trick.

"People are always saying, 'George, would you help me work out?'" he said. "And I tell them, 'Ninety percent of it is getting here."

I wanted to tell him the other 10 percent is shutting your yap and actually working out. As far as I could tell, George was only working his mandibles.

"How about your diet?" he asked. "Are you cutting back there? Because a little ice cream here and there can really add up."

Argh! This man wanted to stand around asking me about my diet and a little ice cream? He's lucky I wasn't carrying a hamburger around with me.

I escaped him by running into a tanning booth.

The worst, by far, was another gentleman who just walked up and asked, "Have you lost weight?"

"Twenty pounds," I lied.

"I thought so," he said. "You were really fat when you got here."

"Thanks for noticing," I said.

"You know what they say," he said. "There are no fat prisoners of war. Get it? Because they're not eating."

Was he advising I hand myself over to a hostile nation in the name of weight loss?

The trend has continued outside the gym, with a co-worker I barely know advising me on makeup.

"You should wear eye makeup more often," he said. "It looks good on you."

What? I wear it every weekday that I work.

I've got a little unsolicited advice of my own.

Stop giving strangers advice. We know we're overweight and need more eye makeup.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian. She resides in St. Petersburg, Fla.