Sweat, sanctuary and a unique friendship

My friend Rita Rago and I have been pals for about seven years. We see each other several times a week and share the most intimate details of our lives, from work to our marriage to families.

The thing is, we’ve almost never seen each other outside of the walls of the gym we belong to in Hollywood. Yes, a couple of times we’ve run into each other at the Hollywood Farmers Market, but because that immediately follows our Sunday morning workout, it feels like an extension of the gym.

Rita is my gym friend. This is different from a workout buddy. Workout buddies meet regularly for the primary purpose of exercising together, coaxing one another through that last set of bicep curls. Gym friends don’t really care if you do that last set of bicep curls; they want to know what you thought of last night’s episode of “The Apprentice” or whether that dinner with the in-laws went smoothly.

It’s a relationship with few strings attached that usually doesn’t extend beyond the gym -- and that’s fine.

Richard Sherman, a clinical psychologist in Tarzana, agrees. Such relationships, he says, are similar to how our parents and grandparents casually kibitzed at barbershops and across clotheslines. Today, we may be more likely to form such friendships at the coffeehouse, nail salon -- or gym.

At his health club, Sherman says, “there’s a comfort level at seeing the same friends and having something to talk about as you’re changing or working out.” Plus, the casual environment of the gym -- no street clothes, no makeup -- encourages people to let their hair down. “It’s almost like a sanctuary,” he says.

And Sherman knows first-hand the value of a gym friend. For 18 years he had a gym buddy with whom he “shared everything. It was a very close relationship,” he says. Then the friend died last year. Sherman says he still finds it difficult to go to the gym at the time of day when he used to see his friend.

Gyms that host mixers and other social events know that one way to retain members is to give them a reason to come back, such as having friends they look forward to seeing.

Jeff Paris, 50, has a coterie of companions at the Spectrum South Bay fitness club in El Segundo that includes a dentist with whom he talks about football, and a group of married women with kids with whom he talks about anything but football. He recalls one conversation with a woman who was agonizing over whether to start a new job or have another baby. As he was listening, the woman suddenly said, “I can’t believe I’m dumping on you like this!” Paris recalled.

He says his gym friends provided support when he was trying to shed about 50 pounds. “I had put on weight,” he says, “because I was going through my divorce and business wasn’t going well and everything was lousy. And then people see you busting your butt and they’re giving you a pat on the back. It makes you want to do more.”

Rita and I met through a mutual gym friend. When that friend stopped coming to the gym, Rita and I struck up a quick and easy camaraderie. We have much in common besides exercise -- both married, no kids, pets (she, three dogs; me, two cats) and we’re about the same age (honestly, none of your business). She’s a fashion stylist , and I used to write about the fashion business.

Our early-morning routine soon consisted of meeting in the cardio room and working out together for about an hour, chatting about our jobs or the news of the day. When one of us had to miss our regular gym day, we’d warn the other ahead of time. I’d always bring a Propel and offer some to Rita, who doesn’t sweat nearly as much as I do, but I still worry about her hydration.

Knowing Rita is going to be there makes the transition from bed to car to gym less painful. As I get dressed I’m already thinking, “I’ve got to tell Rita about the hair that was on my plate last night at the restaurant!” Once there, if it’s one of those days when I feel like a three-pack-a-day smoker, she keeps me focused on our conversation, so I forget about the fact that my lungs are about to collapse.

In the initial years of our friendship I’d sometimes wonder why we never attempted a get-together outside the gym: Wasn’t that the way friendships were supposed to develop? Over time, however, I began to accept this compartmentalized relationship for what it was, knowing that Rita was indeed my friend, and we were OK with the parameters. We even exchange birthday and holiday gifts.

Recently, I spoke to Rita about our relationship. “It’s kind of like therapy, in a way,” she said. “You can talk kind of aimlessly when you’re working out. You just spill things out. And it’s first thing in the morning, so it’s like, what’s on your mind? We work out so much stuff, about family, work.”

But I’ve been thinking lately about changing gyms because I’m feeling a bit burned out and wondering if my gym is still right for me.

The prospect of finding a club better suited to my needs is tempered by the realization that I wouldn’t see Rita anymore and might lose a relationship that’s taken years to build. That’s difficult to imagine.

I had planned to start checking out gyms in a week or two. I might just wait a bit.

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Jeannine Stein can be reached by e-mail at jeannine.stein @latimes.com.