Geez, man, you're wasting a lotta Gatorade. ;)

I find these posts so funny, in NZ (same as Aussie) we don't talk about circle swimming or splitting the lane - it's just called swimming and is normal (and not difficult) to go up one side and down the other. It is a neccessity when there are 8+ people in one lane of a 25m pool at the same time. American's must freak out when they come here and try and go for a swim.
Maybe there are just a lot of pools and not many people using them?

What do you mean by "my side"? If there is one person there, I would assume they are circle swimming- and if you get in and start swimming in the wrong direction, you will collide. Do you mean that you will get in and start circle swim? In which case, there is no waiting involved... Just check their pace and decide if you should go in front or behind them. While you can "communicate" with the other swimmer, there really is not any need to- and I certainly would not try to inturrupt anyone's set to ask if I could get in.... I would just get in and start circling. If the one swimmer there was trying to swim up and down the center and take the whole lane- that's a different story.

I swim in a pool primarily occupied by old, adult onset flailers (not triathletes). They swim down the middle of the pool. I assume they are shitty drivers too.

Any room in your recipe for snot & dissolved farts?

#1 and #4 are essentially the same thing.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
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Nothing like a slowtwitcher bringing an abundance empathy to the table

No, at my pool, most people do not circle. As I said in post #3 above, I have occasionally organized a lane for circling with other current/recent comp swimmers but this might happen once per year. If a person at my club has a lane to him/herself, then most of the time they will swim straight down center of the lane. So, I just pick a side, jump in, and let them know i'm there. When i get in lane by myself, i pick one side and stay on it since i know the odds are about 1050 to 1 against a pro-circle swimmer jumping in, e.g. i swim about 350 days per year and in my 1.5 hr average workout time, on average 3 people will share a lane with me on a typical day and maybe once a year a couple of comp swimmers will want to circle. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

This is how it works at my pool too. Granted we have 2 dedicated circle swim lanes so the other 4 are split. Most people swim on one side but we get some people That swim down the middle. In that case I wait on deck and try to get their attention. If I can't I get in on one side so they know I'm there.

I am not a fast swimmer but one of the faster ones at my pool and have probably circle swam 3 times, not by choice, because many of the slower swimmers choose circle lanes so they don't "take" a lane. Not sure if they're being nice or like circle swim. I'm not against circle swimming at all but at my pool it takes swimmers of similar ability to pull it off because most, like me, have not been a part of a swim team so circle swim isnt something they're used to.

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I'd say educating the swimmers is in the best interest of everyone. The end results are that more people can use the pool, everyone knows the expectations, and maybe even general friendliness can break out.

On a multi-use path, everyone, including runners, cyclists, skaters, all know not to ride abreast if conditions are busy. I'd expect swimmers can get to that point also. Sure, there's always a jackass (often middle aged, in team kit, riding an expensive bike with deep rims, etc), who gets flustered when having to wait to pass the commuters or rec cyclists on bottlenecks like bridges. Happens to me all the time: there's a viaduct that's maybe 150m long, and those dudes can't wait less than 15 seconds to "pass left" when I'm as far right as possible while still avoiding the concrete wall.

True story. I was the director after the opening of a new 50m aquatic center at a major university. We kept the pool almost exclusively short course, 25y across the pool. With the shallow lanes roped off for therapy or water walking and the diving lanes clos d for diving team practice, there were still at least 11 lanes available. There was always a MAD RUSH for lanes once varsity practice ended, with people lined up sometimes 15 minutes before general opening. I heard LITERALLY HUNDREDS of complaints that there weren't enough lanes or we needed to institute a time limit, all because the lap swimmers either wanted their own lanes, or at least to split a lane. These were 8' (2.5m) wide lanes! So, according to this logic, only 22 people could use the pool at one time! The best part was that by 30 minutes after general opening, the place was almost deserted.

If cyclists and runners (generally) know the rules of the path, why can't swimmers? And before anyone comments that pool lanes are more constricting than paths, I'll say I've run on the Lakeshore path in Chicago in the 30-50 blocks north on Saturday mornings in the spring and fall.

I rememer a time when I approached a lane at my pool with 2 in it and asked to circle. 1 guy was cool with it, a lady waiting for a spot to open up looked at me like I was line cutting, and the 2nd guy in the lane had a fit. He didn't want to mess up his workout passing me constantly, and with that literally swam off in a huff. I jumped in anyway b/c "waiting my turn" as he suggested is absurd - the kids cram in 8 per lane. Unfortunately the nice guy ended his workout a bit early and I felt badly about that.

Interestingly, that issue has not come up again since the pool hung signs indicating to circle swim if 3 need to use the lane. There's still no circling, instead the pool is simply less crowded. At any rate, the blue hairs refuse to share at all. I chose the shallow rec end of the pool recently since all lanes plus free deep end rec space were/was taken. These 3 conversationalists - they walk in a pack extremely slowly back and forth across the shallow end - started crowding me like I was in their territory. I was careful not to splash them but they kept crowding me out while there was plenty of space behind them to not be crowding me. A lane opened up, I moved, and so did they - away from where they were crowding me. Ergo I conclude the morning bluehair crowd are a bunch of jerks. Years ago the ladies used to gossip in the locker room - it was like high school all over again, but with super saggy skin.

Maybe living to 70 earns them the right to act like that?

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To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.

Your lucky. All the multi use paths by me have people riding / running 2 or 3 abreat and they are only wide enough for 3 total. Even group rides kitted out do it. No one really knows the rules.
At our local pools they know the rules but don't want to adhere

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

This.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
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water polo people are the worst behaved, they had one of the olympic pool booked out and then send their people in for warm ups. They do this weird swim thing for about 25 metres at a time where it is as if they are trying to beat the crap our of anyone near them.

I just did my thing and got on with it mildly amused, then the ladies team got ready, now I see why people play waterpolo

Millions spent on a pool and these folks think they are entitled to their own dedicated space.

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Truer words have never been spoken.

You could say the same about cars on the road & our entitlement to having a driver's license.

I am a pretty decent swimmer and showed up to a packed pool minus the lane one guy was prepping to get in. He looked like he could swim so I went right toward him before he jumped in and asked if we could at least split the lanes. He immediately told me no and said that to take a look at him as he is an optimal swimmer and he will not share the lane. I stood for a second in disbelief and advised him he did not not own the lane and that was the etiquette. He jumped in and I told him to screw off. Luckily a couple of minutes later one of lanes opened up next to him. I jumped in and repeatedly kicked his ass as I passed him multiple times in the next lane. I am always open to sharing the lane as that is what I would like people to do for me if the pool is packed. I just know one guy I won't be sharing with in the future since he needs to look at my swimming physique to know I own the lane. :)

I would've just jumped in the lane with him. About 2-3 times a year, I have to explain that the pool rules, underlined and in bold up on the wall, say that lane sharing is mandatory when crowded. I just always jump in after the 30-sec explain and haven't had a real problem yet. In any case, glad you were able to clean his clock and pass him multiple times. What a dumb-ass!!! :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I am not getting this. What do people mean when they say swimmers at their pool won't circle? Unless there are are only ever two or fewer people in a lane, how do people not circle? Three or more people and the lack of circling will always cause a head on collision. Can someone explain what happens in a lane with three or more people when they aren't circling?

My pet peeve is people with no conception of pace, and the pools who don't put up simple fast, medium, slow guidance.

I was on swim team for years, and I'm perfectly happy to circle swim with 1/2 dozen people in a lane, but when a pool gets crowded, it never fails that I get someone with a leisurely breast-stroke plop in a lane, and then obliviously toddle along. I know better than to try to 'work-in' with the guys wearing UCLA swim caps hammering out their workouts...

The 'sad' thing is, it usually wrecks my workout. If someone comes in that I'm passing every other lap, I'll grin and bear it for 5-10 minutes and hope another lane opens... But I'm not going to be that guy that tells someone they aren't welcome in my lane, it's not like I've got a payday I swimming for. I'll just get out rather than get agrivated.

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

When I say 'they won't circle", that means they wait until half of a lane becomes available. Very few non-competitive swimmers are comfy with circling. If you try to force the issue, they will just get out. Only very rarely do we have three or more in a lane, occasionally me and maybe 3-4 other "adult" guys/girls who are willing to circle with the HS or college guys/girls, or more commonly, some new guy just jumps in and starts swimming in middle of lane despite there already being two peeps in lane. He gets talked to very quickly and told to wait his turn. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."