Another lesson learned -- Pool environment vigilance

This is what happened to me 2 days ago, which exposed a loose end that I haven't paid attention to (perhaps I should have).

Well as summer approaches I decided to do some daily exercise. An old back injury prevents me from doing pretty much anything besides swimming, so I got myself a half-year ticket for a local swimming pool. I grew up in an area with lots of rivers and lakes, so I've been swimming for almost 20 years and at least I'm VERY good with one style --breast stroke (which happens to be my favorite style for easy maneuverability and flexibility, also good view of the surroundings).

I usually go swimming after work, around 6 pm when most of the people are having dinner, so I can have as much of the pool as possible to myself and swim fast (The pool is quite small with only 25 meters long in length and about 12 meters in width so it gets crowded even if there were only a dozen people in there). On weekends however I go earlier at 5 pm because that's when people start leaving to prepare their dinner. This was the case when I stepped into the pool on June 23, there were still a handful of people (literally) in there but most of the dippers (those who immerse themselves in water but do nothing) are gone.

Now my routine is to do a 1km breast-stroke without stop first thing first, and then try anything I want to until I get bored and leave. As I was counting about 200m, I noticed a man that makes me feel uncomfortable. He is about 1.75m in height, light-skinned (for a Chinese), round-faced, with a beer belly and a tribal totem style tattoo on his left arm next to his shoulder. He doesn't look the part of a skilled swimmer, but he is always within a short distance to the ladies -- too short to be a comfortable range.

I soon realized he had me as a target when my course met with his. We were swimming at each other's direction, and I made way for him to avoid collision, but I noticed his hand was trying to grab at my direction (already very close to me). I rolled over to my side and got out of the way, and decided to keep an eye on him.

The second encounter was made 5 minutes later, when his course and mine were crossing at 90 degrees. He tried to come at me again, which I noticed, and I sped up to escape, while landing a kick on him (not sure where though).

I thought that kick would have taught him a lesson, but I was wrong. As I was about to do my 40th and final lap, he was near the starting point and I saw him grinning at me. This made me feel extremely creepy so I swam right away to the other side. As I touched the wall and turned around, I saw him coming straight at me, having followed my route and HIS HAND ALREADY EXTENDED IN GROPING GESTURE, LESS THAN 5 CENTIMETERS FROM MY BREAST. Without hesitation I pushed him on his right elbow to divert his course, and shouted "What are you doing?". Having been caught, he surfaced and uttered "sorry" insincerely and left the pool. For a moment I lost all appetite of having more fun, but thinking twice I feared he may still be around somewhere and decided the pool is safer for the moment, so I stayed for another half an hour.

Replaying the incident I realized the pool is a typical uncontrolled environment -- we don't know who's sharing the pool with us, and the manager cannot stop people from buying a ticket because they look mean. Also the pool is a particularly risky environment for ladies due to the extent of exposure within, as fellow swimmers may emerge from every possible direction in a 3D grid, unless you keep your back against the wall all the time. In this case, watching and analyzing the surroundings become extremely important. Instincts help a lot -- The creepy guy I met gave me the shivers when I first laid eyes on him. I picked up several alarming signs before our first encounter: 1. Tattoo (Chinese people in general are not fond of tattoos, but thugs and rebellious people are likely to carry them). 2. Facial expression: I could not clearly describe, but that expression makes me sick. 3. Gesture: he always gets into too short a range with the ladies. That was the decisive sign that finally triggered the alarm.

That's my observation and lesson learned from this unpleasant incident -- Have you experienced anything similar to this and do you see any points that I miss? I'm looking forward to discussion.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Another lesson learned -- Pool environment vigilance