Rugby {/football/cricket/baseball/basketball} ?
That’s the one with the “ball”, right? And the scores and all that?
It’s worse than that - I’ve never learnt to drive! :eek:
It seems like everyone is saying that they if they don’t like sports, they pretend they do. Then other people are shocked to find out guys don’t like sports. Maybe that’s because no one ever says they don’t like sports? In Martini’s example, you’ve got a guy who has opened a conversation on a topic, gotten vague, noncommittal answers, and tries to get a more specific opinion. It seems like you’re kind of, well, leading them on.
I can’t tell you how many times I have had this conversation with people who adore their television shows.
I can’t explain how this happened to a red-blooded American, but I don’t watch television.
Books. Computers. Writing my own stuff.
Rereading my own stuff.
Walking the dog.
Working out.
What doesn’t have more appeal than television??
Announcing to a roomful of people debating a plot twist that you don’t watch television.
With strangers or colleagues not sufficiently close to me to know me, I carry on just the OP’s conversation, only trying to make it vague enough to sound as if I enter into their interests, and care about what they care about enough for us to share some sort of common ground. If that’s leading them on, then it’s needful at work.
My profound gap in pop culture knowledge is starting to appear, though, as I recall no lines or characters from Friends or Seinfeld or Everybody Loves Raymond - is it Everyone or Everybody? Eesh. Fortunately I like animated movies, so can chime in with something amusing from The Incredibles.
But I’ve almost had to give up crossword puzzles.
Solving them, that is.
Not composing them…
The whole point of the original OP was that simply coming out and saying “I don’t like sports” in many places would be the equivalent of admitting to being a member of the Communist Party in 1950s America.
It’s much easier to give a vague answer (and keep everyone happy) than it is to deal with the negative social consequences, especially somewhere like Australia, where it’s amazing who knows who and how fast news travels.
But don’t think part of the reason for that is that no one ever says “I don’t follow football?” I mean there’s goign to be less shock if it happens more often.
I happen to be indifferent about sports (don’t actually dislike them, just don’t care.) Whenever that causes a halt in conversation, I find a quick “Whoa! Check out the brunette with the glitter on her boobs!” picks things right back up.
If you aren’t the type who enjoys brunettes with glitter on their boobs, then I got nothin’.
You got my attention, kunilou. 
I had a similar experience as the OP once. I take a karate class at an fitness club. In the men’s locker room is a tv that always has ESPN on. One day when I was changing into my karate uniform, the tv was showing some sports analys program with the anchors arguing about some American Football player’s supposed drug use. I made the mistake of saying out loud, “Who cares? All their problems would be solved if they would stop paying millions to each player and limit their saleries to $100,000/year. It’s just a stupid game.”
Everyone in the locker room looked at me as if I had leprocy. If it wasn’t for the fact I had on my karate uniform by that time (and I am a 2nd degree black belt) I’m sure some of them would have had some strong words with me, or worse.
So now I just keep my mouth shut.
I have two approaches to these situations. If it’s something I know absolutely nothing about, I just ask questions. Folks who know a lot about something are usually delighted to tell you all about it. I’ve learned a lot about hunting and horses that way. I also have gathered a lot of lore about bodybuilding and weightlifting. I say “lore” because good science is hard to pin down in that field.
In talking about sports that I do follow, I simply tell the truth. I love to watch baseball and (US) football, but my sports memory is awful. twenty minutes later, I can’t tell you who made that incredible play. A week ago, my wife came home and asked who had won the NASCAR race. I couldn’t remember, even though I had seen the whole race.
Even people that know that I don’t follow and don’t care for sports attempt to discuss it with me. Maybe it just doesn’t sink in to them that people exist that don’t care if some guy caught a ball and ran under a little post with it or hit it with a stick or put it into a circle thing with a net. I guess I’ve just always thought of most sports as something that kids do.
I watch T.V. but in extremely limited doses and I gasp don’t see the point of paying for cable.
Plus I don’t celebrity gossip.
I realized that I was committing social suicide at my godkid’s Christening party.
The kitchen buzz was “Nanny 911’ and some show about swapping spouses.
After a few minutes I figured out that the women were talking about T.V. and not recent juicy events in their neighborhood.
“Aha-I thought, I can’t discuss reality shows but heh what’s more real than death, right? And I’ve just read “Stiff.” That’ll be my ice breaker topic!"
I quickly discovered that dismembered human heads resting in roasting racks and the real crash test dummies is not a popular topic with the suburban mom soccer set these days.
This is why I don’t get off the farm much these days.
As I was riding the bus one day, we passed a sports shop. The guy next to me saw a particular player’s jersey in the window and it inspired him to strike up a conversation about it (apparently, said player hadn’t been active in over a decade, making it noteworthy that his jersey was prominently displayed). When I told the guy I don’t follow sports, he looked at me and said, “I bet you’re into computers then.”
Made me chuckle, because I couldn’t deny it.
I can understand. I’m gay and I don’t particularly care for Babs (Barbra Streisand) and I think Madge (Madonna) sometimes makes good music but her videos and anything else she does outside the recording studio is worthless.
For any of our straight friends who don’t know, this is an admission to a crime of equal weight to not liking sports on the hetero side.
(just kidding Homebrew 
I’ve got some of this in the past. I’m not interested in sports or cars or television / celebrity gossip. The good thing is, I’m almost never in a situation where I have to pretend to have an opinion on something I know nothing about. Now that I’ve reached an age where I don’t care if anybody thinks I’m cool or not, I can say “nope, sorry, you’re asking the wrong guy.”
If I were pressed to come up with a response, I could always say that “all the years you were doing that, I was learning to play five instruments well enough to get paid for it, and learning to operate a recording studio,” or some such thing. Or that I never learned to drive because I lived in a place with such good transit, I didn’t need a car. It’s still a bit sticky with the TV thing, because I don’t watch it. I can’t quote Seinfeld or Friends or any of those shows, either. I haven’t encountered any hostility about it, but I get the occasional look.
The ribbing about it doesn’t come up in this line of work, really, because we all specialize in something that almost no one else we know does. We each have a slavish devotion to some aspect of this business. It’s OK that I don’t know what a Nole is, or how to change a carburetor, because last week I produced a show that made the ratings go up. That’s what keeps me employed. Having the skills to do that trumps being able to quote baseball scores from 60 years ago.
Hey! Check out the brunette with the glitter :smack:
Long, awkward silence.
That? That was brilliant.
I am a tremendous baseball fan, but people around me seem to be really into basketball. I don’t follow basketball, and I particularly could care less about college basketball.
So a month or two ago, I’m sitting in my favorite dive in Vegas (Blueberry Hill – best pancakes around) and some guy sitting next to me starts asking me about the UNLV basketball scores. I tell him I didn’t see the score, and he’s holding a paper in his hands already. He passes me the paper, explaining that he doesn’t have his glasses with him, and asks if I can find the score for him.
I do.
Then he asks me about several other scores, and starts to talk to me about the rivalry between team X and team Y. For fifteen minutes, I manage to have a “conversation” with this guy about basketball teams I know nothing about. The extent of my contributions was mostly, “Yep.” “That’s true.” “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” “Wow, I hadn’t read about that!” “I’m sure you’re right.”
This guy never seemed to notice I had no interest in and no knowledge about what he was discussing the entire time. In a way, I was proud of myself for skating through that one.
So what do they think of you if you’re a sports fanatic AND a communist?
I will give a little “Hail to the Redskins” if the subject comes up. But I really don’t care for football, basketball, or baseball at all. Luckily, I don’t go to bars or hang with folks who would care that I don’t care. But on those few occasions when it occurs, I just say, “I don’t really follow (thing X).” And I’ve never gotten any crap on it.
Then I go back to cleaning my gun while muttering, “Them damn lying squirrels!”
I hate talking about sports too. When the Olympics are on, I sometimes enjoy watching some of the individual competitions, but I’ve almost never gotten into team sports. The only team sport I can watch for more than five minutes is American football, as long as I view it as an analog of war maneuvers.
I’ve practiced martial arts for close to half my life, I used to rock climb regularly, I hike, I lift weights, I’ve started distance running, and if it were in any way legal in this country I’d practice shooting, like I used to in the US. I don’t “play” anything, and I don’t do sports. I’ve only gotten nasty attitude about not knowing or caring about sports on a couple of occasions. They shut up pretty quickly when I started in on my list of things I consider worth my time. When it comes to whip it out and compare contests, few beer-bellied sports enthusiasts can beat manly stuff like wilderness hiking, climbing up sheer cliffs, and practicing how to break other people’s limbs.