Male brains don’t fully mature until about age 26. Hence young men are more than willing to put themselves in danger in the military, police work, other hazardous jobs and doing stupid things to prove their manhood. Hence spinal injury clinics like the Shepard Center in Atlanta see about 85-90% young men vs young women.
Seems like every pier on the great lakes has a list of names in memorial. Two thirds of the names are teenage boys and the remaining third are the adult males who tried to save them.
As a teenager I would have found the waves irresistible but as an adult even small breakers just make me think I don’t want to be cold and wet.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, we had a commuter railroad (called the Boston & Maine) that ran through our neighborhood. The kids in the neighborhood used to play chicken and see who could run in front of the train and get closest to it. Very stupid and I never participated in that. However, a kid eventually got killed. As he went to run across the tracks, he tripped on the rail and fell right in front of the train. It was said that his body was sliced in half. I don’t know how true that was. In those days, there was no Internet and the local paper didn’t give any details. Either way, absolutely gruesome way to die and so unnecessary. The kid was only 12 years old.
That would go far in explaining why I married my ex - LOL!