Personal Narrative: My Social Norm

Everyone in life grows up with their own distinct family values and family norms. According to James Henslin, values are the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable to them, and norms are the expectations of what is “right,” which develop from our own values. The way people determine what is right or wrong are by the sanctions they receive, which are the expressions of approval or disapproval for what they have done. All societies in the world develop their own expectations for behavior that eventually become part of the shared culture we live in today. Along with our shared culture and own family values and norms, exist what are called folkways and mores. Folkways are norms that are not strictly enforced to everyone.
By doing so, I deviated from the norms that are expected of everyone who attends the gym. Personally, I am not one to ever commit a purposeful social norm violation, but I saw this specific violation done a couple years ago, and so I decided that I wanted to see what type of results I would get at my gym. Before I attempted my social norm violation I did ask the Body Exchange Owner, John Ovanessian, if my violation wasn’t against the law and was something I could do at the gym. John is one of my regulars at the restaurant I work at, and so asking him did not affect the people whom I was aiming reactions from. Thankfully, he simply chuckled at me and gave me the thumbs up for it, and told me to let him know how it all went and what my results were. With that being said, a couple days later on a Thursday night around 6pm, my boyfriend and I picked up two orders of large fries and ten piece chicken nuggets along with a large drink from McDonalds, and made our way to the body exchange on Calloway and
I intentionally violated the custom etiquette and expectations that people give themselves when going to the gym. I did so by taking and eating fast food at a place that people go to work out and get healthy/healthier at. In the process of my violation I did get several different reactions from different people, and I was able to gather the distinct reactions between females and males towards my violation as a female myself. Unfortunately I only had one person approach me due to my violation, and I believe no one else did so in fear of committing a norm violation themselves by coming up and saying something to me. My violation taught me how I really perceive the gym attending society as very judgmental and how even the smallest violation caused me to feel very out of place and unwanted at the