What kind of man doesn't like sports?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ll admit it. I suck at sports. I especially suck at basketball. That for some reason seems to shock people, especially since I’m a black guy. Like I tell them "“I’m only partial to fried chicken, I don’t like to dance and I loathe watermelon, too.”

This morning we went to the gym for PT and the idea was to play basketball. Oh, screw that. I’d have rather just ran for five miles. I don’t find it fun, and the only thing I know about the game is “ball go in hoop”. After being hit in the face twice by the ball I decided to sit it out. I suck at it, I know that. I’m 45 years old. I’ve sucked at basketball since I was 10. When I was a kid the other kids wouldn’t let me play basketball at the playground because I was so horrible at it. My grandfather actually built a basketball hoop in the yard so I could practice, but as I said, I SUCK aty it. Add to that I wasn’t that interested in the game in the first place.

So in an offhand conversation with another soldier as we’re leaving the gym I mention to him that I’m not very good at most sports because I’m not all that interested in them. I don’t play or watch basketball, football, baseball, etc. I don’t even know what team is the best nor do I watch them on TV. (My wife does, she loves watching football and NASCAR. Which is why we have 2 TVs) This prompts this guy to ask “What kind of a man doesn’t like sports?”

Oooo-kay…this isn’t the first time someone has said this to me. I usually just shrug it off because I don’t care too much what someone thinks. But hey, I’m only human and I I do resent the idea that I’m not enough man to like sports. So I said in my most smart ass voice “Yeah, I’m a wierdo. I have more fun watching the discovery channel, or working on my artwork than watching monday night football. I mean, how could I possibly resist the chance to watch some overpaid beefy guys run up and down a field. They make more cash than teachers and doctors! They must be important!”

Of course the other person ccouldn’t let me get away with that remark so he goes on about how its just “expected” for men to like sports. So I had to break it down for him. “Dude, you’re saying you want me to be like you. You want me to like the same things you like because somehow my not liking them offends you. I don’t hate the game, but I don’t enjoy it. How in the world does that make me less of a man than anyone else here? I mean I spent a week in Amsterdam going to museums instead of the Red Light District. Guess I must be gay*, too, huh?”

I don’t get it. Why do people think its so strange that I find sports, well, kinda boring? I don’t hate them, but given the choice of playing football, basketball or softball or going to a museum or even fishing (which I guess can sorta be considered a sport) I’d be in the museum or throwing my lines in the water. Geezuz, I’m sick of the question about what kind of a man doesn’t like sports. I already know I’m the odd man out most of the time…but if its because I don’t have a reaction like Pavlov’s dog to Monday Night Football I’m happy about it.

*not that anything is wrong with that.

2

Mr. S says he doesn’t get much thrill out of sitting around watching a bunch of millionaires running around on a field when he could be doing something more interesting, like working on his house, or reading a book, or hell, even spending time with his wife. :smiley: He absorbs some knowledge of sports just by osmosis, I guess, but he’s not obsessed with it and doesn’t follow any current sports. He might know whether the Packers are playing tonight, but he just doesn’t care about the outcome. If anything, he might hope they lose just to piss off all the Packer worshippers. But he doesn’t watch the game. (We don’t even have a TV feed anymore.)

He used to like to play tennis, but none of his old partners are around anymore. Basketball ditto. And now that he’s in his 50s, he gets plenty of exercise between his physical job (nursing assistant) and working around home, so in his other free time he’d just as soon relax.

Hey, you and Mr. S should get together. I bet you could be peeps. :slight_smile:

3

Here’s a short answer: the kind of man I like.

Seriously, I’ve seen enough sports to last me the rest of my life, and seen enough of people who worship them to the exclusion of oh actually participating in real life.

Those who enjoy them in moderation, though, shrug. This I can’t argue with.

4

Another black guy with a scrub-class game. I actually only had a passing interest in playing sports and none in watching them for about the first 14-15 years of my life. My mom got re-married and I basically had to start watching sports. The Pistons were on the rise and that kinda sealed the deal.

I’ll admit to the assumption of men watching sports but I don’t hold it against anyone who doesn’t. I’ve been surprised by the black person who doesn’t like rap also. Stereotypes are a mofo.

5

One of the things I really like about my husband is that he is just not interested in sports. He just doesn’t care. :slight_smile:

6

I know plenty of men, including myself, that are adventurous as hell. If they had money and the chance, they would climb Everest or take a ride in the Space Shuttle or a gazillion other exciting and “macho” things.

With reality pressing in, we make do with things like rock climbing, kayaking, scuba diving, hiking, camping and so on and so on.

Most of these guy’s don’t give a flying flip about competitive sports and even less about watching them on TV.

7

There’s nothing wrong with not liking sports (I certainly don’t), but you sound kinda insecure about it.

8

My husband is often considered gay because he does not like to watch sports. Which is odd, all my gay friends are more hip to sports then he is.

9

I like all sorts of physical activity – swimming laps, lifting weights, hiking in the mountains – but team sports, particularly spectator sports, bore the hell out of me.

The annoying thing about sports fans is their all-too-common assumption that if you’re not into their hobby too or there’s something wrong with you.

10

Well, you’re not alone. I’ve watched a basketball game or two on TV, and I even went to a baseball game and two hockey games, and celebrated on the streets of towntown Toronto with the rest of the city when the Jays won the second world series in a row, because hey, who doesn’t like a block party that takes up 30 blocks? The games I did go to though were purely because I worked concierge at a fancy-shmancy waterfront condo that was home to several Raptors, Jays and Leafs, so I was always getting tickets.

Generally speaking though I don’t care for sports, playing or watching. I’ve got lots of other things to keep me busy. Guess I’m not much of a man either. :slight_smile:

11

I’d imagine he’s referring to the competitive nature of sports and how that is typically associated with masculinity.

12

Sports make my eyes glaze over in sheer boredom.

13

I like plenty of sports, but it makes me a little sad to see grown men - and women, sometimes! - devote their lives to such a superficial and insignificant endeavour as being a fan.

But, as Chomsky said, sport is the opium of the masses.

14

Doesn’t Teh Army have a system of ranks for scenarios like this? I thought you couldn’t mouth off like a little bitch to just anyone. Obvi, you must assign him some sort of bullshit makework to teach him this lesson.

15

“Girlie men” - Hans and Franz

16

As a child I was a sports fan.

I grew up.

17

I don’t get sports at all. I can follow “soccer,” (an individual game, I mean, not game-to-game, I don’t have the attention span or interest) but any time I’ve been obliged to attend any other sport it’s a complete mystery to me.

I went to a hockey game for work recently and called my wife to say that I was going to be late, because the third quarter was just starting and we were way past the halfway point of how long I understood the game to take. The salmon croquettes were excellent, though.

The one and only time I “watched” the Superbowl on television, I was the only heterosexual guy in the room - so I don’t know that liking sports is strictly a butch thing.

Hell, that reminds me of the time that all my friends came over to watch UFC at my house, because I had the best TV/seating for such an epic event. All TV-facing seats were taken, so I sat on the floor by the TV, facing all of them. Maybe it was all the fat joints (ahem) that went around, but I couldn’t help but notice that they looked like a bunch of guys sittin’ around watching porn, except with less tissues.

Nope, don’t get it.

18

Believe me, I’m not. I’m just sick of some people thinking that its some kind of abberration. And its not something that makes me crazy mad, or unreasonable. I just don’t get it. If you’re a big sports fan and I tell you I don’t like to watch sports what difference could it possibly make to you? Its not like I said I’d rather skull fuck a kitten than watch a footrball game. I just said I find it boring.

I will watch the Superbowl most of the time just because its the Superbowl. I never care who wins or loses and the commercials are really more important to me than the game.

I may have to edit things…I enjoy fishing, which is considered a sport.

I wanted to take my wife to a baseball game once, but she had to work that day. The only reason I did want to go was because it was one of the last games played at the old Vets stadium in Philadelphia. My grandfather used to take me to games there when I was a kid.

My unit is now giving out FREE hockey tickets for soldiers and their families. Bah. I’d be bored stiff, and I can probably have more fun at home.

Technically I could have said “Sergeant, shut the f*** up.” to the guy, since I? outrank him. Thats counterproductive. He was a young NCO and my hope was to allow him to see that *some people, even your comrades in arms, do not share all of your opinions. *

Its not like he was a private. Most privates wouldn’t have said stuff like that to me unless they wanted to spend their lnchtime scrubbing the toilets with a toothbrush and doing a half million pushups. :slight_smile: (I am exxagerating…I’m not a hard ass…but I wouldn’t let a private mouth off to me. Still, I actually talk to my soldiers like they’re real people…I don’t want them to think they can’t talk to me as a person, as long as they maintain military bearing)

19

My dad’s basically “meh” on sports. He can take 'em or leave 'em. He’ll watch the Steelers with the rest of us, but if given the option, he’d just as soon watch something else.

20

I totally understand, Jolly Roger. I strongly dislike, and always have strongly disliked, playing or watching any sport. (The one exception to this is tennis, which I played in high school; my observation was that it seemed to be a sort of default for kids who didn’t like sports but needed to play one anyway.)

Growing up, this aversion caused me a fair amount of distress: embarrassing myself at PE, having my incipient manhood questioned, being picked last for a team, etc.

Now, I’m very glad to be in a milieu where such aversion to sports is not all that uncommon, and I couldn’t give a flying hoot what kind of man does or does not like sports, or whether it is expected that men should like sports.