why?

[awdemeo]

most people i know thinks its awesome till you start talking about tech diving beyond the range of natural light then people think you are crazy

[enigmata]

plenty of people have told me they felt scared when first trying on a scuba set. probably has to do with individual comfort with being submerged in large bodies of water...

[Johncalloway]

My wife was like that at first, and now she sees the pictures I take and wants to start diving herself.

[scubajane]

I have found in many areas of my life I have had people telling me 'for my own good' about what tragedies will occur because of what I am doing. when I got engaged i was told that I would soon be divorced (Ive been married 31 years...happily) when I got pregnant I was told that I would miscarry ( I have 2 healthy adult children) when I moved to Pa I was told that I would hate it there and would move back home ( Ive been here for 25 years) I think people are expressing their own fears and expect you to be fearful too. I also think that they care about you and want you to be careful. so If you reassure them that you are being careful and are training with good people it might calm their fears. be sure to not do something stupid that will cause them to say, " I told you so"

[TJDiver]

Like someone else posted, it's the fear of the unknown...or, at least, the fear of something they've chosen not to pursue. I get the same thing from people about riding my Harley cross-country. A lot of the media treats it like a dangerous activity, so they follow suit. It is a strange phenom indeed. There's a lady here at work that reacted a bit negatively when she overheard one of my diving conversations in the break room a few days ago. She reacted negatively mostly because my conversation centered around how well my newly certified son is doing in the sport...she thinks 13 is "much too young for such a dangerous sport". But, then she gets in her car, and runs the guantlet home...an activity that, without checking the numbers, I think gets more people killed on a daily basis than most anything else. I've heard of people dying while scuba diving, but I've never actually known anyone that died from diving. However, I've lost family members and close friends to car wrecks, as have quite a few people I know. It follows to reason, that you would thus think driving a car would be the thing that makes people's skin crawl with fear and anxiety. Go figure.

[navyhmc]

I think a lot of the "You shouldn't do "X" because it's dangerous!" comes from the speakers own personal fear, misconceptions and in a lot of cases, sheer ignorance about "X". In this case Scuba. I can say I know a lot of folks cancelled tropical vacations and some even dive courses after Jaws came out because a big, bad shark is going to eat them. I dove before and after Jaws came out-thought the movie was funny and hokey!

But still a lot of folks in their mind with undue prejudice will try to convince you "X" is bad because of their own fear. Empathy is a powerful force!

I will admit though I have seen folks that say "I would never do that" Change their minds when they are presented with the facts and figures and good information about diving-photo's help too. And a lot of great photo's have been posted here. (shameless ST plug)