Quote (HyphyIll @ Sep 7 2014 05:54pm)
Its normal for human beings to want to be seen and accepted for their qualities. Its quite necessary to live a healthy life.
If I could, however, I'd predominately train alone or with a serious partner.
I may have a skewed view on that. When I was younger, I was really fat and it made me very self conscious. People liked me, but I felt alienated just because I was fat. As I hit puberty, I started growing upwards instead of outwards, but was still self conscious of that single aspect of myself (it was my perception of how I believed people saw me that bothered me, not actual responses from them or how they really saw me). Then, before I got to college, I really stopped giving a shit about any judgement that was or was not put on me. When that happened, I felt more free to do what I wanted to do, and pursue things that actually interested me, not the things that others necessarily saw as important.
When it pertains to the lifting world and this conversation, I think people will accept anyone for qualities they already posses, but by trying to mold one's self into something, based solely on acceptance and criteria of others, is unhealthy and will never be truly satisfying. That would be trying to make one's self into an ideal of what those around them want them to be, instead of being around those that want them to be nothing but what they actually are. If someone lifts because they feel that it will help them to become accepted, then that is a worthy goal if he/she believes it to be. But, I might recommend some introspection as to why they feel that need to be accepted by those who judge them largely on body composition.
How do you train now?
I was always in what I found to be a good situation for training. In track, it was group training, but still alone. We were in a space where we usually had our own racks, platforms, and individualized workouts, so we did our own thing. But we still always had a spot if need be.