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My Pool Is Ruining My Social Life

When Smiljana Peros moved into a building with an outdoor pool 16 years ago, she imagined weekends full of swimming parties, poolside gossip and sunning with her friends. “It was like ‘Oh my God, I live in Florida!’ ” says the West New York resident who is in her “late 50s.” “It’s a huge pool; I can do laps in it.”

But instead of relaxing with her single pals, she’s found herself hosting a revolving door of parents and their children. “They come and bring their kids because they know it wears them out,” Peros says, adding that the families often stay for four to five hours. “It’s not just come, swim and go. They swim, have pizza. The kids never want to leave. It’s not an hour thing.”

And while she likes sharing her pool with friends, she admits that come fall, a lot of her visitors tend to disappear. “Come to think of it, I do see them a lot more in the summer.”

Having a pool sounds awesome, but it brings it own unique set of headaches. There are the concerns that others are taking advantage of your largesse. If you have access to a shared pool in the city, family members are vying for one of your few, coveted passes and there’s anxiety surrounding whom to invite or exclude. And with more new high-rises including private watering holes among their amenities—boosting property values—more New Yorkers are getting familiar with the etiquette minefield that having such a hot commodity entails.

For example, most of these buildings won’t just let a tenant bring her whole squad for a dip in the pool. Dara Levine, a director of product management at Tumi who lives in the swanky One Museum Mile uptown, loves to entertain. But she and her husband can only invite two guests to use the pool at one time. “It makes it difficult when you want to have people over,” says the 51-year-old, who has lived in the building for 3.5 years. “Say you have two couples you want to invite for dinner. Or if I want to invite my brother and his wife, but then my parents, too.”

Peros, meanwhile, says she doesn’t feel guilty telling people they can’t come over. “I might suggest making plans to do it another day, but I don’t switch around plans to accommodate others,” she says.

Of course, some residents don’t mind being exploited for their aquatic amenities. “I work from home a lot, and it can get pretty lonely sitting in my apartment by myself,” says Long Island City resident Paige Crist, who moved into the Queens Plaza high-rise QLIC in October of 2015. “So I invite my friends over, and we just work poolside all day. It’s amazing.” The 38-year-old, who works in publishing, says that she’s not opposed to using her pool in order to make friends or get dates. “Maybe I should post a picture of me at my pool on Tinder,” she says.

And then there’s Dallas Athent, who has a pool practically to herself in her Riverdale, Bronx, apartment but no one with whom to share it. “I did have a work party here once, and that was really fun, but, in general, the only person who comes to visit me is my boyfriend, and I think that’s because he’s in Westchester and has a car,” says the 28-year-old writer. “I wish people would come over, but all my friends live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and they won’t come to The Bronx!”

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