Earl wrote:
Could you share your conflicted view of sports with us. I would be interested in knowing what the source is of this conflict in your life. I'm sure that some, if not all, of us would be able to relate to it. This forum definitely is the place to vent and say things that you ordinarily wouldn't say.
Sure....you may have already read my rant about my high school PE experiences and so forth, and as I mentioned, that was a snippet of my conflicted views!
I've always been somewhat of a "stat freak", so I was drawn to sports as a child in large part by the numbers -- batting averages, points per game, won-loss percentage, etc. I loved to keep track of these things and compare players and teams with each other. (This extended -- and still does -- beyond sports; I kept weather logs with temperatures and averages from the time I was in high school, and eventually used the data in a school science fair.) I was enthralled also by the dramatic commentary on sports broadcasts, how they made every game and every play seem like the world was riding on it.
Unfortunately, my skills at tabulating sports didn't extend to the playing field; I played one season of Little League baseball, was miserable, and never wanted to play again. I still liked to watch it, though, for the same reasons mentioned above.
Now in high school, besides my bad PE experiences and all, I hated the fact that girls only seemed to like the guys who were athletes, and even guys who had been my friends in grade school suddenly stopped hanging out with me, even if they didn't play sports, so they could befriend the "jocks" and be cool. (These were girls and guys I had grown up with and used to be respected by, but they were more drawn to guys with numbers and names on the backs of jerseys than to someone they'd been friends with since childhood, apparently.) So, I began to resent sports (at least school sports) and those who played and coached them. I still watched TV sports out of habit, although not nearly as much.
When I went to college and then on to work, I still maintained some interest, but sporadically -- I didn't watch every game, and didn't know who all the league leaders were in every sport, etc. It was just one more entertainment option I had -- sometimes I chose it, sometimes I didn't.
After I met my girlfriend and now-wife ten years ago, I cut back on sports viewing even more, as she's a *very* casual sports viewer (and by casual, I mean she'll watch the first five to ten minutes of a "big game" and then either fall asleep or find something else to do -- and if sports were taken off TV, she'd never miss it) and naturally, I wanted to spend time going places and doing things we both enjoyed.
The last place I worked, though, was with several guys who were big-time "sports bores" as some the forum users have been ranked.
They knew every play of the game from the night before and analyzed them in minute detail all day long. I couldn't keep up with them, given that I didn't watch the games regularly enough anymore. When they'd ask me if I watched the game, I'd usually say no, and they'd jump on me about how I didn't support the team, my city, etc. If I mentioned I watched something else (like a movie, a National Geographic special, etc.) they'd laugh and tell me how while I was wasting my time watching that stuff, I missed an overtime thriller involving the Cleveland Browns or Cavaliers, or whomever, and that I was probably the only person in the whole city that watched whatever I was watching; everyone else would have been watching the game. If I mentioned doing something with my wife and not seeing the game, they said I was "whipped" and that a real man would just tell his wife he was watching the game and that's that. So, I learned to stop talking about subjects other than sports (I also collect coins and attend birdwatching events and hikes, but when I brought these up, I was told that these were "nerdy" activities, and that again, I should be watching sports), and I also decided I needed to watch more sports to keep up with these guys.
I no longer work there, but a couple of years ago, my wife and her mother told me I wasn't like other men, because I had different interests and most men they knew were only concerned about when the next sports game was on. I'm sure they meant this as a compliment, but I started to fear I was "losing my manhood", since the guys I had worked with, and guys I'd see portrayed on TV commercial, sitcoms, comic strips, etc. always seemed to watch sports, even when it made their wives upset. So I started watching even more sports, so much so that I felt guilty if I missed a "big game" by the local teams or a playoff game. The time I spent with my wife suffered as a result, and she began to complain about it. I knew in my mind I watched too much sports, and that I'd never accomplish anything with my life if I was constantly having to plan around sports watching, but I couldn't bring myself to give it up, or even cut back. I started looking for sites on the web about people who were giving up sports or who just didn't like them, to see if anyone had similar feelings or experiences, and to see what people were like who didn't watch sports. That's about the time I found this site.
I've tried watching a few sports games since coming on here, just to gauge my true interest level now that I knew the other side of the equation. I've found I have a hard time keeping interested in the games, even if it's teams I used to like. The football games, for example, seem monotonous much of the time, just one mundane play after another, punctuated by unintelligible and pointless interviews with players and coaches, or the announcers going on and on about how "these guys really don't like each other -- this is gonna be a war!"
So I guess my conflict is that I feel compelled to watch sports, for social reasons and that nagging feeling about possibly missing a historic game and being the "only person around" who didn't see it, yet I know I was watching way too much of it, it was having a negative impact on my marriage, and there's many more interesting things I'd rather be doing and exploring. Plus, how do I tell people (like family and friends) that I don't watch sports anymore (at the rate my interest is waning, I suspect I may be watching no sports at all within a year or so), especially when they've given me sports-related clothing, tickets to games, etc. as gifts in the past, or accommodated me by having "the game" on TV when I came to visit? Will they be happy for me, or just think something's wrong with me?
I'm fat and sassy! I love to sing & dance & stomp my feet & really rock your world!
