Sunday, February 06, 2005

The Curse of the Non-Sports Fan Male

Just home from a Superbowl "Party." Not much of a "party," really. About a dozen adults plus kids, some beer, and food. More of a gathering, really. But anyway. It is currently 9:11PM CST, which, unless something has changed drastically in the past few minutes, would indicate that the Superbowl is in fact still going on. Couldn't care less, personally.

See, I'm just not a sports fan. I mean, I enjoy some sports just fine -- mostly individual sports, where you can really observe the one-to-one relationship between training and result. Gymnastics. Skating. The World's Strongest Man Competition (the most absurdly theatrical and entertaining fake sporting event EVER). But team sports, in general, leave me icy cold.

So, I'm at this Superbowl party. The host is a good friend, and a terrific guy, if a bit bland. One other guest is a dear friend -- we don't exactly overlap a bunch in terms of politics or general realms of interest, but where we do overlap we can really have a blast. Nice guy.

But, well, the others?

Stiffs.

I'll never understand these sports fan people who want to stare, with laser-like focus and intesity, at a sporting event, even if it's a boring one. Every attempt at joking around and getting conversation going stalled instantly tonight, killed in its infancy by dullard-like uh-huh's and sighs of discontent that communicated, clearly, "can't we just watch the game?"

But, don't these guys realize tonight's game was boring as shit? Isn't there something to be said for declaring that a game is dull and instead trying to get some sort of chatter going to keep things interesting, even if the game is kept on for the sake of tracking the results?

I realized I was really, truly, out of my element when, during the absurdly dull and irrelevant halftime show, one of the guys kept stating, matter of factly, that Paul McCartney is "a real class act." Over and over. And noting with reverence that his voice has really held up.

Oh, ferchrissakes.

Wound up heading downstairs and chattering with a latecomer and his wife about religion (they are really, really nice folks who are at particularly difficult crossroads in terms of our parish -- them moreso than me, for lots of reasons, which is somewhat of a relief -- so at least it was an enthralling talk), and then struck up a great conversation with my wife and another friend (the wife of the one cool guy upstairs). Blessed relief.

Sigh. People wonder why I have so many gay friends when I am, myself, not gay. Well, this is why. The tyrannical mediocrity of straight sports fandom. The implication that if you're straight and not enthralled by a dull football game (not that exciting games aren't out there -- but I've found that they are the exception, not the rule) then you are somehow wrong for the pack. The clear and precise decision to stare, slack-jawed, at a poor game rather than engage in a good conversation.

What the fuck is wrong with people? What the fuck is wrong with *me*?

Mood: Annoyed.
Now Playing: Nada.

7 comments:

Karl Elvis said...

Hey, I thought it was a pretty decent game. BUt then I have not slept for two days so what do I know. B^)

Gregg P. said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gregg P. said...

Meh. I gave up after the first half and the stultifyingly dull half-time "extravaganza." From whatI see in the press it got a bit better in the second half. But that's part of the point, I think -- if I had sat through 90 minutes or a film that uninteresting I would have walked out, and if it turned out that the last 90 minutes were pretty good I would still have said "so what - sitting trough a bad 3-hour movie for a good 90 minutes of entertainment is not a good use of my time."

Ray said...

The Superbowl is like New Year's Eve. It's a night when everybody goes to parties because they're supposed to, but nobody really has any real fun.

I'm from Boston, so technically I'm supposed to be a Patriot's fan, which is the only reason I watched tonight. But you're right...most boring football game ever.

And I'm with you on the gay friends thing. I mean, I'm a baseball fan, but I am so not into the whole straight guy thing of wanting to talk non-stop about sports and cars and home improvement all the time. My drinking buddies, we could go out on 8-hour long beer shnogs and sports wouldn't come up once in conversation.

Gregg P. said...

Sounds perfect! And I've known plenty of gay guys who are sports fans. However, I've never met one who seems to think the only thing that men can talk about together is sports, sports, sports, sports, sports.

Of course, it's probably because they're thinking "well, if he isn't into sports we can always just fuck a lot," but who knows.

As for beer schnogs -- when we doin' a pint night again? You seem to be the busiest right now, so you pick the time and place.

Gregg

Ray said...

I can't even think about it right now. If I get any time to rest, I'm going to sleep.

Anonymous said...

Next Superbowl, make it three rooms.
One for the game and only the game.
The next one room is for food, drinks, et all with music.
The third room with another TV. This year, Puppy Bowl, was the crowd favorite with more people watching it for longer periods of time than the game room.