Football Games
Andrew requests that I explain my feelings about professional sports. Actually, he apparently narrowed that down to sports with "ball" in the name, but I think my opinions can be applied to any major team sport.
Most importantly, I don't watch sports because I feel watching them is a waste of time. That's not to say I don't have other ways of wasting time, but sitting in front of the television and watching people kick the crap out of each other or run around a diamond a few times or hit a little black cylinder that nobody can see or run back and forth across a wood floor while dribbling a bouncy orange thing just seems pointless to me.
If I'm interested in the game (which, by the way, is an associative property of sports; i.e. I am interested in a game because people around me expect me to know something about a game), then I'll take a look at the score on the web and read a couple highlights. And, while everyone else is watching that game, I'll be doing something less brain-rotting than watching TV and eating potato chips (or eating chicken wings or drinking beer or...).
This has a similar application to live sporting events.
Another important aspect of my dislike for watching sports is that I do not typically get along with the sort of people who watch sports. In Pittsburgh, that's different because everyone here watches sports (what else is there to do on a Sunday afternoon?), but in most cities, the usual suspects for sports-watching are less civilized, etc., than I am. They get excited about football tackles and hockey fights and batters getting hit by pitches. That's not my cup of tea.
I enjoy watching solo sports, however, and maybe all this dislike for sports actually stems from my desire for isolation. But, I like watching a lot of the Olympics for just this reason.
I hope this entry does justice to Andrew's query. I've had a long week (it's over now, though!), and I don't really feel like thinking anymore, but I've been putting off responding to him for a couple days. So, here it is.
Comments
Wow...thanks for the info.
I am amazed that your answer exactly mirrors my own answer to such a question. For so many years, especially in junior high and high school, I was ostracized for basically not giving a damn about any sports like football, baseball, basketball, etc. Do you remember the "pep rallies" that schools used to have to pump up the football and baseball players and such? During my entire high school career, I never went to any of them. When asked why, I told people that I was not going on principle alone, seeing as how those sports were akin to mental masturbation. You can imagine how many friends I made with comments like that. In fact, when asked what my favorite sport was, I usually said something like competitive chess.
Yep, relegation was the order of the day for me. People disliked me in part because I didn't like girls, and in part because I had no desire to associate with people who I perceived to be intellectually inferior. Just for kicks, I used to posit that I was innately superior to just about everybody. Obviously, I didn't go out of my way to make friends, and it could be why, to this day, I hold stupid people in contempt.
I'm going on and on, but you'll have to forgive me. Meeting someone who thinks like me, in any regard, is so rare that I have to take a moment for thanksgiving. You're an interesting guy, Colin! I'm going to have to thank Tamara for introducing us.
Posted by: arc | February 9, 2006 09:08 PM