In Aruba on a vacation, the wife and I wanted to sneak in a few dives. Jumped on the boat and starting setting up my kit. The gentleman next to me proceeded to inform me that he wouldn't buddy with me because I looked like a vacation diver and he didn't like my gear setup and he wouldn't trust me. I politely informed him that it was ok; I was going to dive with my wife. He replied that he too was diving with his significant other, so apparently, he just wanted to point out to anyone in earshot that I was not his choice. I dive with an air 2 (which I know is not everyone's cup of tea), that and my full foot fins received most of his attention. Other than that I carry the standard stuff: snorkel and light in the pocket, small knife attached to BC, console clipped to BC with retractor so it doesn't dangle and a small spool with safety sausage on one of my D-rings. Mind you, I had never met or dived with this person in my life.
We dropped the first group off on the reef and after a bit the second DM told us to go ahead and make our entry. It was to be a guided dive, but if a set of buddies would like we could meet him on the bottom for the tour. My wife and I jumped in and made our way to the bottom. We waited about 5 minutes or so and finally the DM and the other couple made their way down. The gentleman who didn't want to buddy with me proceeded to bounce off of the coral head we were poking around before gaining some state of neutral buoyancy. Well, for the next 15 minutes or so this nice chap alternated between running into the reef and creating a silt storm by crashing into any sandy bottom that could be found. He added to this tool chest of diving skills by inadvertently running about 100' feet of line from his spool all over the reef before letting the DM know that he was getting low and needed to surface. The DM had initially informed us that we would be ascending as a group, but signaled that my wife and I were ok to stay down for the remaining 20 minutes or so. We stuck near the mooring pin and had good time watching the dive master collect this gentleman's line.
Back on the boat I avoided temptation to say anything to my new friend and just enjoyed the surface interval. I have no idea how his second dive went, the DM told me and my wife that we were welcome to do our own thing if we wanted but that he was going to stick with this other couple for the dive. He asked that we just be back within 60 minutes.
Back on the boat for the ride back I was treated to another free seminar about how my kit could be upgraded. I'll admit I will probably go to some of his gear choices when I begin replacing bits and pieces but it was quite humorous to be getting this level of advice from such a terrible diver. Back at the pier we tipped our Captain and DM out and when to the bar for a beer, a short bit later another beer arrived courtesy of the DM from the boat and we had quite the chuckle reliving the day's events.