Swimming Etiquette

1. Thou shalt go in the correct lane - yes i'm talking to you, balding fat men who can't swallow their 'male pride' and instead continue to clog up the fast lane inconsiderately. Conversely, muscley guys who are very slow should also get in the right lane. A six pack does not make you a good swimmer by default.



2. Thou shalt use the middle of the lane for overtaking only - swimming so far over it's impossible to safely overtake someone so you're stuck behind them, however slow/flailing they are is infuriating.



3. Thou shalt overtake people correctly - i.e. allowing enough room to completely go past someone, legs and all, before you go in front of them again. Fat men killing themselves to overtake you doing their best/worst frontcrawl as you're doing a leisurely breast stroke I find are the worst offenders, who although amusing are no fun when they kick you in the arm.



4. Thou shalt let faster people go first - having had someone stroking your toes the length of the pool generally indicates they are faster than you. Take a couple of seconds to let them go first on the next length, gor goodness sake.



5. Thou shalt wear appropriate attire - obviously swimming attire is going to be tight, but have the mercy not to wear sprayed on speedos/swimming costumes ten sizes too small - they're really not flattering. Jewellery is also obviously not a good choice, for example today I saw someone wearing their rosary beads, long and potentially dangerous and besides, God's meant to be with you everywhere anyway, or so I hear.



6. Thou shalt not pose in the shallow end - sure, a rest is acceptable, but blatantly posing in the shallow end, occasionally doing a token lap of front crawl/breastroke without even putting your face in (in the fast lane paticularly) is unbelivably wimpy.

Idle people lining the wall at the shallow end also means people who are actually swimming have nowhere to push off from, and can't complete lengths of backstroke properly, as even though someone standing in the shallow end will see you swimming towards them doing backstroke they will happily let you swim into/onto them. Idiots.



7. Thou shalt not openly be a pervert - obviously a swimming pool is a voyeurs dream...however openly oggling someone or deliberately waiting for them to do breastroke in front of you whilst you follow closely behind with your beady little goggles is nauseating.



8. Thou shalt not swim side by side - I don't care if you are a couple, get in line like everyone else you're clogging up the middle lane. Feeling each other up underwater is also not appealing.



9. Thou shalt keep lane discipline - most obvious rule, but the number of either really slow or deliberately disruptive people who just jump on in and start swimming the complete opposite way to everyone else is staggering.



10. Thou shalt not gob all over the place - disgusting. This goes for in the changing rooms too, paticularly in and around the showers. Pools are gross enough as it is, with the top layer consisting of the oil etc from everybody, going down to the denser human matter which is floating all around, (yum) but spitting can be helped.



Rant over.