Why would you not want to be the same as your teammate?

[kr2y5]

An interesting question has been posted in this thread, for which 1000 people will have 1000 answers... I thought it might be interesting to see all the reasons that folks might come up with...

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This thread has been edited so what and moved to the Advanced Forum due to the nature of the topic and subsequent discussion. Marg, SB Senior Moderator.

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[Dr. Lecter]

Assumes you're diving with an actual teammate, and even then that the gain in standardization is worth the loss of personalized tweaks. This is a boring debate, though. People who come down hard on one side go GUE, their opposites solo more or less all dives regardless of level, and everyone else does what they feel like in between those extremes. That being established, maybe we can stop talking about it long enough to go dive.

 

[RJP]

An interesting question has been posted in this thread.

So why re-post it here?

I'm with Dr. Lechter... let's go diving.

 

[kr2y5]

So why re-post it here?

Because it has little to do with the OP, and as such, it is a tangent better discussed elsewhere.

let's go diving.

Have fun, I don't expect to be able to dive this week. I'm missing the point of your post, though... if my question bothers you and you'd rather be diving, what are you doing on an online forum?

 

[lemke]

Because sometimes my teammate is my opponent.

 

[kr2y5]

Because sometimes my teammate is my opponent.

Interesting... I take it you are speaking in the context of spearfishing?

 

[Subcooled]

Has not the history of mankind teached you that we value freedom over the life itself?

Besides, in most cases it is not actually the equipment but the lacking skill (rehealsals, anyone?) that causes problems. Certain large scale operations may be an exception.

 

[TSandM]

It's a good question, and one you can really only post outside of the DIR forum, where the desire to be the same as your teammate is not only assumed, it is the only acceptable answer.

When my husband and I got certified, we picked out our equipment to match, so we would each understand the other's setup, and parts would be pretty much interchangeable. It made sense to both of us at the time, although NOTHING we bought would be remotely DIR. We had back-inflate BCs, integrated weights, Aqualung Titan regulators, Air2s . . . and the thinking that caused us to buy everything pretty much the same still seems valid to me, ten years later.

The difference now is that I don't just want to be like my husband -- I want to be like a whole POOL of dive buddies, so that we can grab a buddy at random and the same ideas still work.

I have always wondered why there is so much resistance to the idea of standardizing dive gear configuration, especially at the recreational level.

 

[Dhboner]

Why is it essential that you are the same? I dive sidemount and find myself in the water with backmount divers regularly (many of whom are GUE trained). As long as we are clear on emergency procedures, mixed team diving is fine.

 

[Subcooled]

Rephrasing the question:

Why would you not want to be the same as your wife (or husband)?

I have always wondered why there is so much resistance to the idea of standardizing dive gear configuration, especially at the recreational level.

Maybe because people want to be different, colours do matter, and as adults they want to make their own minds (in good and in bad), and because adults are not supposed to need babysitting? And do not forget the capitalistic system Standardized equipment has its uses, but is it really needed everywhere?