DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the etiquette around sharing a hotel swimming pool?
Today there were five people attempting to swim laps in the 25-meter pool. Two were thrashing up and down, and rather than using the lap lane, they each took up a third of the pool’s width. This left the three others to share the remaining third.
The swimmer in the middle of the pool did not make any attempt to avoid other swimmers and nearly hit one of them each time he passed. He seemed to feel that his “need for speed” exempted him from polite sharing.
This is a frequent problem for me at hotels. What to do?
GENTLE READER: Etiquette dictates that people using common facilities should be courteous and share, and it leaves to local initiative the details of how this is to be accomplished. But as this is not specific enough to solve your problem, Miss Manners will add a few observations.
1. Sensible hotel pool owners post rules, even if they do not enforce them. You should feel free to suggest this to management during your next stay. They do not want pool confrontations any more than you do.
2. Absent such a posting, primary responsibility to avoid a collision lies with the person in motion — meaning a careless swimmer who barrels into an innocent fellow guest owes an apology.
3. Aggressive swimmers are often aggressive in other ways. Coming back later or crowding into a smaller space may therefore be safer than knowingly courting a collision by standing in the middle of the pool with a beatific, but distracted, smile.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
