# Confession time--I am male, and have 0 interest in sports **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 13, 2010, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571 "2010-09-13T05:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/41 "2010-09-14T01:12:56Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > …Students get excused absences for big road games (from some instructors, not me)… I had several professors that made no secret of their displeasure at all the “allowances” they were “encouraged” to make for student-athletes (ie football players). The tenured ones were especially candid. Once sociology professor was more than willing to name or share “requests” made by athletic directors or administrators “in strict confidence” with his students. Always without naming the actual students involved, but he considered staff fair game. He bragged about the coachs had started actively warning athletes to never take a course or section he was teaching. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/42 "2010-09-14T01:14:26Z")
I don’t mind other people being interested in sports. What I do mind is the automatic assumption by sports fans that everyone shares their interests. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/43 "2010-09-14T01:20:44Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > [This](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens_%28book%29) is a very good book on the relationship between play and culture generation. I read it in the context of some research I was doing on dueling, but IIRC there is some material applicable to sports, too. > > > [@statsman1982](#): > > > > Imagine everything that sports fans do, but put it with video games. Tailgating for LAN parties ?😛 Taking whole weekends off when a new WOW expansion pack comes out? Spending $1000 on a trip to E3? I bet a lot of us gamers would be called “immature” for engaging in “kid stuff.” Oh, unless the game is Madden 2010:p > > We just need to go live in South Korea. I have no interest in going to a football game but I would absolutely watch a pro SC2 tournament on a big screen with thousands of other people. I try to imagine a world in which people come to work the next day marveling over an innovative mech build or really risky gambit at the water cooler instead of whatever it is they talk about. In that world, there would be cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! Thanks for the interesting link too! ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/44 "2010-09-14T09:16:23Z")
I went to Ohio State for 7 years, and never went to a football game. Since then, I’ve lived in some very sports-obsessed cities, and am still indifferent about it. I also don’t care about drinking (especially beer), gambling or fine dining. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/45 "2010-09-14T15:17:21Z")
Most team sports don’t interest me much; I really don’t know much about them. I enjoy watching sports I know a bit about, but Equestrian sports are rarely on TV. 🙂 I think that’s like everything. Musicians usually enjoy musical performances more than non-musicians, &cetera. When my husband took up hockey I learned a lot more about the game, I’m not an expert or anything, but I understand the basics of what’s happening. Plus, after seeing what hockey looks like when newbs play it, I have a lot more appreciation for the skill level of a pro or good college player. I recently found out that I have a second cousin who plays for the Montreal Canadiens. Most of my family is not very “sporty” so that’s unusual! I actually don’t know that side of the family well. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/46 "2010-09-14T15:40:11Z")
Get thee to a nunnery. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/47 "2010-09-14T16:30:12Z")
All I can say is that you’re all missing out on a hell of a lot of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/48 "2010-09-14T17:28:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > All I can say is that you’re all missing out on a hell of a lot of fun. Your “fun” is not my “fun”. That’s deep, I should put that in a fortune cookie. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/49 "2010-09-14T18:49:38Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > All I can say is that you’re all missing out on a hell of a lot of fun. I’ve given your kind of fun many chances. It’s boring. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/50 "2010-09-15T06:53:09Z")
Stand by to hand over your union card, dude. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/51 "2010-09-15T06:58:01Z")
Huh. I’m not sure where I fit. I’ve always been interested in the rules of sports, and, being in band in high school, I did develop the ability to enjoy individual games, but I never seek them out. The closest I can get is attending for social reasons, and even then I’m the guy who roots for who everyone else is rooting for, or just an arbitrary team. In fact, I used to tell people I always rooted for whoever was winning. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/52 "2010-09-15T09:17:59Z")
I’m a girl so I get a pass (yay!) on not liking sports, but for me it’s deeper than just disinterest. See, I was raised by my mom, who is a sports fanatic. I grew up with basically sibling rivalry jealousy issues even though I was an only child: the other “child” hogging my mom’s attention was sports. If there was a game on (and there always was) I was not to enter the room, try to ask a question, etc. I remember once I needed to get the scotch tape from the other side of the room and my mom made me crawl on the floor so I wouldn’t walk between her and the tv. So I don’t just not like sports. I DESPISE sports. I get an emotional gut reaction (literally, I feel it in my gut) just from hearing sports announcers talk. My first husband didn’t like sports either, which was great. My current husband does like them, but doesn’t watch games very often. I watched the SuperBowl with him this year for the first time in my life and tried to enjoy it for his sake. He made margaritas, which helped. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/53 "2010-09-15T13:41:01Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > As a kid, my dad never watched sports. Boom. This, more than anything else, is the reason for why you don’t like sports. It’s like hunting and fishing. It’s an acquired taste. And as you get older, it’s harder to acquire that taste. I’m sure you’ve come at it with an open mind before, but once you’re an adult, your mind can’t be open _enough_. Ask all the Dopers that are also sports-loathers and I bet they’ll tell you that their childhood household never watched sports. Then take all the people that like, say, baseball and football but not hockey, and I bet you their dads (or moms, sometimes) watched baseball and football but never hockey. Trying to like sports as an adult is like trying to force yourself to fall in love. You can’t love the person in the future because you don’t love them now. And if you didn’t love a sport as a kid, you won’t love it now. > [@dhkendall](#): > > I think this is just one of the things that makes a Doper unique. This is probably the only place that the OP can post this and be preaching to the choir > … > I think this is just the jocks v. nerds dynamic after high school. Nerds will never understand sports, never did in high school, won’t start now. Jocks will never get an orgasm from advanced trigonometry. I don’t think either part is true. First, I think there are a TON of guys that don’t like sports. I don’t find it to be a rare trait at all, in real life or on the internet. Second, I’ve never found there to be a big difference between jocks and nerds with respect to sports. I _have_ noticed that nerds like baseball and jocks like football, but I’ve never found those interests to be exclusive of each other, and I don’t think there are many nerds that shun sports entirely. I like certain sports, but as long as I have “chess” in my username, you can pry my nerd card from my cold, dead hands. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/54 "2010-09-15T13:57:08Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I don’t mind other people being interested in sports. > > What I do mind is the automatic assumption by sports fans that everyone shares their interests. It’s not just sports fans that assume everyone is interested in sports. Most of the cable/satellite providers have various sports packages that they not only use as a selling point for their service, but also constantly push at their current subscribers. I’m always getting emails and notices from DirecTV about the sports package of the season; tennis, football, baseball, etc. A few weeks ago when I had to talk to someone at their tech department several times about a problem I was having with my DVR, everyone I talked to concluded their call by asking me if I was interested in signing up for their NFL service. When I explained that I had no interest in sports of any kind, one of them confessed that neither was he, but he was required to suggest it to all the customers, and he wasn’t happy about it either. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571/55 "2010-09-15T14:07:50Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > …I _have_ noticed that nerds like baseball and jocks like football… I’ve always pretty much been a nerd, and hate baseball. I used to be indifferent to football, but as I stated in my earlier post, I love watching the NFL now. Heck, if anything, I’m getting more into it as time goes on. For the last few years, I only watched Patriot games. This past week, I actually watched both Monday Night Football games (until I fell asleep at midnight, anyway), and the Patriots weren’t playing in either game. I’ve found that after watching the whole rest of the league play the Pats over the last few years that I’m now familiar with most of the other teams, so watching two other teams play is also interesting (especially when the games involve watching the overhyped Jets and Chargers lose). 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confession-time-i-am-male-and-have-0-interest-in-sports/553571.md?page=2)