In my 18 years of competitive swimming, perhaps the most important thing I have learned is that not all sports teams are created equal. There are team sports, individual sports, women’s sports, men’s sports... but there is something special about being a part of a co-ed sport.
It’s a dynamic that can’t be understood until you’re a part of it, and even once you’re a part of it, you're still not sure what it is.
1. It’s less friendship-based and more like a giant family.
Maybe a little less cult-y.
2... and you pick on each other as such, because it’s like having 30+ siblings.
3. Except you’ve more than likely hooked up with some of them.
Bonus: swim teams call it "swimcest".
4. Which means that you get really good at dealing with past hook-ups you have to constantly see.
Sports teaching life skills.
5. You spend so much time together that people on the team most likely end up dating.
And then they usually end up being the team parents.
6. You've probably seen the opposite sex partially or fully naked, and you've become desensitized.
7. As a female, you get to push yourself in the same workouts alongside the men and it’s pretty #empowering.
Whoever said guys are more athletically inclined than women has obviously never been on a team with them.
8. In fact, you start to identify with gender binaries less and less.
Because some girls will out-lift you and some guys enjoy shaving their legs. It’s whatever.
9. Team cheers sound a lot more unified when you have high and low voices combined.
Choir in the off-season?
10. And then it becomes a lot easier to interact with the opposite sex.
They’ve seen my crying-after-a-really-hard-workout-face and still talk to me, so I guess I’m pretty cool.
11. And finally, you don't really feel the need to make other friends, because you've got your squad covered.
Actually, you know, cult is pretty accurate.
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