If you are a Real Man you have — at least once in your life — wanted to, wondered on, or actually pushed a woman into a swimming pool. Any man who denies this urge exists is lying. Civilized men the world over fight, but always give in to, this undeniable desire to get their women wet — and no one can ever begin to explain the why of this unfortunate phenomenon — and I admit the woman below is giving me fits because she’s already halfway in the pool and just a nudge from my foot…
What is it about the prenatal male DNA that requires us, at least once in our lives — when near any woman and a swimming pool, pond, river, ocean, hot tub or puddle of water — to push the woman into the water? We will not be denied this satisfaction once started. When the effort begins, the end result is always an undeserved drenching.
The experience always ends ugly, but we never fully admit or even learn that truth and so we keep seeking satisfaction from an urge that ends only in pleading. You see this all the time in real life and on television. This “Women into Pools” phenomenon is The Irresistible Urge, the Pavlovian Response, the Hunter/Gatherer Syndrome all wrapped up into one selfish act. I am uncertain how this romanticized, unromantic, erotic, dousing, knowing, unconscious reflex in men was born and propagated.
Seeing a woman — clothed or bathing suited — near a pool, creates an inexplicable impulse to push her in or, if she resists your undeniable urge, you grab her, lift her up and throw her in or, if she still fights you, you grab her and fall into the pool with her. I hate to admit I have done this swimming pool bit several times in my life — all but one of them under the age of nine.
The last one was many years ago when Janna and I were dating. We were visiting my female cousin in Kentucky when we passed by a swimming pool on a tour of the apartment complex. As if by instinct from a force I could not resist, I grabbed Janna to toss her into the pool. Janna fought me. She was in her Sunday clothes and so was I.
We were a tangle of frustration and fury. Janna is uncommonly strong and it was an Amazing Feat of Strength for me to peel her off of me, pick away her fists from clutching my shirt and then betraying her faith in me by continuing to throw her down into the pool. She missed hitting her head on the stone edge of the pool by three inches.
So there we were. Me heaving for breath. Victorious in my pleading demise. My cousin — there — frozen in time and staring between me and a boiling Janna in the pool… not knowing what to do… or what to say… Janna, furious, found her way out of the pool and pushed me into the water with a necessary revenge.
The “When David Pushed Janna into the Pool and Almost Killed Her” incident has taken on a cryptic mythology in our family indicating the dangers of male-induced dominance over women and continued pure wonderment at how Janna’s head wasn’t cracked open by my “male neediness.”
I take all those criticisms to heart because I am heartsick even now at the slow-motion memory of watching my proclaimed beloved fall into freezing water by my hand as her beautiful, flowing, hair brushed the stone edge of the pool on her way down. Some of those luscious strands of hair were caught in the masonry and ripped from her scalp as she instinctively turned her head just enough so her skull missed the sharp edge of the pool.
Our eyes locked as she fell away from me — eternally falling forever with outstretched arms and pleading hands — and with my reflected betrayal ripening in her eyes as she splashed, and then disappeared into, the drowning of my demise.
Male hubris is a terrible and condemning thing that cannot be measured or tamed. Male Hubris needs to be ignored and repressed or it will rear back on its heels in the unwarranted pressing of hands against a woman in ways that can choke beyond the pool and create a bruising bedroom while constructing a hollow darkness where a bright, safe, place to land should thrive.
I still do not know why I pushed Janna into the pool. I guess I thought I was being funny. I know I wasn’t funny. I was cruel and acting dominant and I am grateful serious injury to Janna was avoided by her tremendous and instinctual will for survival even in the darkness of my own red-faced and abject stupidity.