I think the "problem" with the gym scene, for me only (my opinion here!) Is that, contrasting with Mickey scene of him talking about Kev's boxes, Kev knows Mickey, he knows he's with Ian... He knows that is meaningless and so does we. Kev is not interested in mickey and we as viewers don't care about that "flirting" because we know is meaningless. However, the scene with Ian in the gym... that guy doesn't know Ian is married and Ian doesn't tell him, in fact he's the only person in the episode that Ian talks to that he doesn't tell that he's moving in with his husband. My point here is, I actually was ok with the scene, I even found it funny, but was really "mad" that, you know, Ian didn't make it clear he was married. I thought it was just a unnecessary scene... don't know. To be clear I love Ian and loved this episode! And this is already too long sorry! Hahah
I agree that the scene was pretty unnecessary and it just shows sloppy writing to me, which doesn't surprise me because Nancy is a huge bitch and she also clearly doesn't know how to write Ian alone since this is the 2nd cringey gym scene she's written.
I get the difference between mickeys and Ian's flirting but it's still the same thing when u think about mickey having gawked at a naked man at the fancy gym in ep 7 and Ian gawking at a sweaty man at the gym in ep 11. Ian didn't intend for the guy to hear him and to me even looked a little embarrassed that he did hear him. Yes its annoying he's the one person he didn't outright say he's married to but he has his ring on constantly so like idk I just don't see the big deal and that's my opinion 🤷♀️