Please don't let Reddit warp your perception of reality. It is just a corner of the web full of awkward and negative people (and bots these days). In real life, there is always people socialising at gyms, especially small ones, even received a random compliment a couple of weeks ago by someone I never met.
I’ve been going for a few years and only had someone talk to me once. Maybe I should start going without headphones.
I have never worn headphones to my gym (YMCA) and I can only recall one person, a friendly, disabled man, initiating a real conversation.
So negative. An event I went to, everyone I talked to, they had a wonderful time. Reddit's opinion was that it was terrible.