Wish I had some of these buddies! Just have to find some friends who are into amateur lifting like wife and me, but all we hang out with are damn runners, and cyclers. I used to be a runner for almost 20 years and then my wife made me see the light and I feel so much more gratified from lifting.
The gym we use, since moving back here to Tampa is a smaller privately owned 24/7 gym and about the size of an Anytime Fitness, so it’s mostly the high school kids around us and some avid machine users.
The other larger gyms, like Gold’s, Crunch, LA Fitness, etc., were all over populated with mirror selfie snappers, so no bueno on machines.