Swim Rant

I read all the rants with great laughter before leaving for swim practice. At swim practice I was involved in a situation I would like to rant about. I usually swim during the day, but decided to swim at night with an organized masters team. A lady in my lane took one look at me and decided that she was faster than me. So, we are doing a 600 free and I am right on her toes when she decides to switch to backstroke. I pass her and then in the next set of 3x200 she tells me that she is faster than me and demands to go in front of me. When I tell her that I think I would prefer to be in front of her, she pushes off the wall and goes. URGH! The next set was 6x100 and I pass her during the first one. I then decide to give the person in front of me a little more space and has my feet leave the wall she rams into me. Apparently, she decided that since I was giving someone a ten second space, there was no reason for her to give me any space. At the end of practice, she told me that just because I am tall does not mean that I should have swum in front of her. I feel better for ranting. I think I may just stay with noon masters. Yikes! I guess I've been lucky--I've dealt with all different kinds of people, but in masters' practices, everyone's usually pretty polite. But I've seen people like this woman in other settings: she will not re-examine her viewpoint regardless of evidence to the contrary because she's clung to it probably for a very long time, like a "security blanket," and she'll treat anyone who proves her wrong as somehow the one at fault, usually by citing something totally irrelevant (like height, in your case) to show how wrong you are and how right she is. I've found that the only way to deal is to recognize that such a person must be terribly, terribly afraid of any truth about him/herself that doesn't match his/her expectations. Must be painful to live like that--like wearing ill-fitting shoes all the time because one is convinced that they are the only right ones to wear.

I read all the rants with great laughter before leaving for swim practice. At swim practice I was involved in a situation I would like to rant about. I usually swim during the day, but decided to swim at night with an organized masters team. A lady in my lane took one look at me and decided that she was faster than me. So, we are doing a 600 free and I am right on her toes when she decides to switch to backstroke. I pass her and then in the next set of 3x200 she tells me that she is faster than me and demands to go in front of me. When I tell her that I think I would prefer to be in front of her, she pushes off the wall and goes. URGH! The next set was 6x100 and I pass her during the first one. I then decide to give the person in front of me a little more space and has my feet leave the wall she rams into me. Apparently, she decided that since I was giving someone a ten second space, there was no reason for her to give me any space. At the end of practice, she told me that just because I am tall does not mean that I should have swum in front of her. I feel better for ranting. I think I may just stay with noon masters. Yikes! I guess I've been lucky--I've dealt with all different kinds of people, but in masters' practices, everyone's usually pretty polite. But I've seen people like this woman in other settings: she will not re-examine her viewpoint regardless of evidence to the contrary because she's clung to it probably for a very long time, like a "security blanket," and she'll treat anyone who proves her wrong as somehow the one at fault, usually by citing something totally irrelevant (like height, in your case) to show how wrong you are and how right she is. I've found that the only way to deal is to recognize that such a person must be terribly, terribly afraid of any truth about him/herself that doesn't match his/her expectations. Must be painful to live like that--like wearing ill-fitting shoes all the time because one is convinced that they are the only right ones to wear.