Male swimmers.

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

You know that thing about entitled men occupying too much space? I.e with legs spread wide etc.

I've recently started swimming. In the lanes all the women move aside to help you get past, or wait at the end to leave enough space for the next person to go.

All the men do huge splashy crawl. They do a summer salt turn at the end even if someone is waiting to go. They never move aside to help you pass, and basically do nothing to help or accommodate other people. It really pisses me off

[SummerSazz]

I've never experienced this in 4 pools i have swum regularly at. If you want to pass someone (and they haven't already seen you /let you pass) you gently tap their foot.
Only thing people get peed off with I when people are clearly in the wrong speed lane.

[Snapespeare]

I swim 4 times a week. The pool has a slow lane, fast lane and a wider bit for less stressed swimming. I go at times where there are no children, so folk tend to swim lengths in the bigger roped off bit. If I am early in the pool , I tend to swim in the slow lane - general.bit if slow lane v busy. If a man then arrives and has the pick of general large bit or fast lane to do his splashy front crawl, he inevitably chooses to do it in lane I am already occupying.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

Swimming etiquette is abominable.
Sorry to say, in my pool the women are the worst offenders.

[PinkIndustry]

I have noticed this, too, OP. My pool is rural so does not get overly crowded but when there is more than one swimmer in a lane, nearly all women look behind them as they reach the end and, if you are practically at their heels, they stop and let you turn first, men very rarely.

On one occasion when there was only one lane roped off for swimming and I happened to be the only person using it (kids and families in the 'general' bit, local scuba divers in the other roped off lane). Two men arrived to join me in the lane but, before they started, one of them stopped me and politely warned me that they would be doing front crawl extremely fast as they were training for something or other. Of course I said that I would move out of the lane to which he replied, "Oh, that seems unfair as you were here first." I nearly replied, "It is" but, instead, simply smiled and then proceeded to swim faster and do more lengths in the general bit. Can you imagine two women arriving and saying that to a man who was already in the lane?

[MilkTwoSugarsThanks]

Anyone who considers themselves a better, more committed swimmer than others (especially ones who actually aren't) behaves like this. It's not a gender thing in my experience.

[PinkIndustry]

Anyone who considers themselves a better, more committed swimmer than others (especially ones who actually aren't) behaves like this.

Actually, I'm not sure that's true. From my own anecdote above, where I rather haughtily felt I ought to mention that I went on to out-swim the two men ( ), I would say that I am someone who does consider themselves a 'better, more committed' simmer than others! I know that I feel like this and I know that, inside, I often feel irritated with slower swimmers and, if I could have my own way, I really would like them to get out the pool so that I can swim faster and more comfortably. However, I would never be so rude as to let this show or to 'barge' someone out of the way or anything like that because I do know they have as much right to be there as I do. Plus, I'm a woman, so I am socialised to be polite and accommodating.

Personally, I think that when women feel entitled and superior to others (as I do when I am swimming!), we are less likely to do anything about it and we just feel internally irritated. When men feel entitled and superior to others, the next step seems to be to take action and behave in a way that gets them what they want - whether it be more space in a pool or on a train or whatever.

[GreenTomatoJam]

I go to a hotel spa pool (right next to my house). The women pootle up and down doing breast stroke (or one woman does a beautiful smooth crawl), and I do a bit of both. It's only small, not really designed for lanes (somewhere around 15m long at a guess)

If there is someone crawling up and down under a bow wave, it's a bloke. The hot tub is entirely used by men, who never shower first (so I'm never going in there anyway)

This may be because the women are, in general, of the older persuasion using it as gentle excercise in the style of a walk, whereas the blokes are definitely using it as cardio paired with the gym next door.

The men definitely make their presence felt more (some very bad technique, or swimming very fast in the tiny pool), and shower less though.

[VestalVirgin]

Anyone who considers themselves a better, more committed swimmer than others (especially ones who actually aren't) behaves like this. It's not a gender thing in my experience.

It's probably a dominance thing. So, while women are able to display it, men are more likely to because they have been socialized to behave this way, while women are more socialized to be polite.

[erinaceus]

It is less to do with taking up space or one's sense of oneself as a swimmer - competent or otherwise. It has more to do with proprioception. Just as one does not routinely bash into other people as one walks along a pavement or crash into other road-users in a car, so this is true in a swimming pool. However, most people spend less time swimming than walking or driving. Therefore, they are less able to judge their speed and that of those around them and the amount of space that swimmers of various speeds occupy. Think of a toddler crashing into furniture and legs as she or he learns to walk or the wide berth given to cars with L-plates.

In swimming circles this frustration with your fellow swimmer is known as "lane range". I try to adopt the attitude that I am grateful for more people swimming, because more swimming is a good thing. Unlike other sports like running, that amount of swimming that can be done is limited by the availability of safe spaces to swim. However, I struggle when a to maintain this attitude when my own swim is disrupted.

Source: Learned swimming proprioception the painful way by joining a swimming club as an adult. The majority of my team mates had swum in tightly packed lanes for hours and hours every week since they were children. Of course one-upmanship plays its part. So does an inability to judge one's speed relative to other swimmers, or the relative space taken up by different bodies doing different strokes in the water. This comes with a practise one cannot expect of recreational swimmers and was indeed accounted for - when new swimmers joined the swimming club they were accorded the sort of sympathy one might accord a learner driver, until they got the hang of it. When a lane was crowded, we were swimming at near-maximum effort for several minutes at a time and there were no collisions, I used to call it "lane qi".

[HapShawl]

When I used to swim regularly, my experience was that whatever speed the men swam at, the majority would always go in the fast lane. I often found myself moving into the (empty) slower lanes because the slower ones would not let me pass. So those men were not good judges of their own speed relative to those already in the pool.

[whattheseithakasmean]

It is the women who leave slicks of make up and perfume in their wake that I most object to.

[PinkIndustry]

I have never swum through a make-up or perfume slick! (Suspect I have swum through an ocean of urine in my time, though!)

Why would women leave a perfume slick but men wouldn't leave an after-shave slick?? And it's always interesting so see women on a thread scorned for using frivolous beauty products - because, of course, it's not drummed into us constantly that we must use said beauty products to be considered acceptable to society How original.

[whattheseithakasmean]

I don't mind women using beauty products (I use them myself), but I would appreciate them showering them off before they entered a communal pool. Actually, I do mind women using excessive amounts of strong perfume, it makes me feel ill. I don't appreciate strong aftershave either, but encounter that less frequently.

[GreenTomatoJam]

I've never seen that - in fact, despite it being a spa pool, I've rarely seen a woman in the pool with as much as heavy mascara. Vastly more women than men shower (the exception generally being dads with kids who are setting a good example), the women are generally less hairy (myself excluded) and either tie their hair up or wear swimming caps.

Overall, in my pool, the ranking goes - parents, women, men - when it comes to consideration and cleanliness (parents have always been very good - aware it's an adult environment, women occasionally drift around a bit, but never intentionally, and always apologise, blokes don't shower and power through the water swamping the rest of us on each tuen)

[EBearhug]

It's bad lane discipline not to let a faster swimmer go ahead of you at the end of the lane, but many people are unaware of this (there's been many an MN thread on it) - it's mostly not a gender issue, though. People who do tumble urns are usually among the faster swimmers, but I think you should avoid them if it's particularly busy.

Men are more likely to have a big splashy stroke, and I think that can be about dominance. If it's really splashy, it's not usually the most efficient stroke anyway, and a tidier stroke would get them as long as quickly with less effort.

I do sometimes take pleasure in swimming as fast as, or faster, than a splashy bloke. Those who are there partly for the attention don't like that, especially as I am quite overweight. I'm the sort of speed that can be fast lane or medium lane, depending on who else is in. I favour a lane to myself, but that's not often an option in a public pool.

I've rarely seen issues with make-up in the pool - the changing village at my local pol is cubicles next to the pool, though, and once in a while, there is a blast of some cheap deodorant/body spray across the pool - when people are changing to go home. Don't know if it's more male or female, though.

[shinynewusername]

IME, men hate a woman overtaking them but women are just as guilty of other forms of lane-hogging, particularly standing at the end of the lane for ages so there is no room to turn.

[shinynewusername]

PS DH - who is a very good swimmer and usually the fastest in the pool has a nemesis - a girl of about 11 who is amazing . They are in friendly competition - he never speaks to her as she is in the pool by herself (I assume that a parent is watching her from the seats) but he enjoys watching her smirk when she does a length faster than him. Hopefully she will grow up to kick the butts of many male lane hogs

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

There's an old guy in my pool who swims a length front crawl pretty fast (and splashy) and overtakes me easily, but then swims the other way backstroke very slowly so I have to overtake him.
Nothing to do with dominance I don't think, but we're forever leapfrogging each other and getting in each other's way. I plod along at a moderate-fast pace with no variation so he's in the wrong
Then there are two women who swim side by side, slowly, chatting taking up the width of almost 3 people and don't swim straight up and down, they drift, squishing other lane swimmers up.
Both inconsistent man and drifty women are oblivious to other's suffering.