I went to the beach this morning with my dogs. While I was watching them frolic in the waves, I started chatting with a guy who was surf fishing. He was nice looking, friendly, complimented my dogs. A pleasant guy, all around. I think he was flirting a little. I can't be sure because it happens so rarely and I've always been embarrassingly dim in recognizing anyone's interest in me. I didn't stay long enough to discover more, because I was hungry and my initial scan of him indicated that we had little in common, anyway. He had a Dodgers baseball cap, San Francisco 49ers t-shirt, and a Lakers duffle bag. He was a sports fan. Deal-breaker.
I couldn't possibly care less about sports. When people start talking about anything related to athletics, my eyes glaze over and a pleasant song starts playing in my head. I used to PRETEND I liked sports to make myself more desirable to men. It seemed important to them, and I was trying to adapt. I came to realize that I wasn't adapting, I was posturing, and it made me tired and resentful. Why, oh why, I would wonder, couldn't he read my mind and know that even though I SAID I loved his sports team and would like nothing more than to spend a Sunday watching his favorite sports team play another sports team, what I REALLY wanted to be doing was walking through a museum, or eating lunch on a bistro patio. It was a lovely, liberating moment when I decided that I would never again feign interest in a topic or activity, in order to be more romantically appealing. I'm too old and cranky.
I don't mind going to live sporting events, because it's a nice time with friends and there's always a great energy and sense of civic pride. Plus there's stadium food and beer in big cups. I watch the sport being played, and I cheer for the home team, but I could take it or leave it as a regular activity.
The only sport I genuinely enjoy is bobsledding, and obviously, I don't get to see much of it, except during the Winter Olympics. I can't say why I like it, except that it's fast and exciting. But I don't have a favorite bobsledder, and it's not like I follow bobsledding on ESPN. And in case you're wondering, no, I don't care for luge, because (to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld) it looks like the luger is participating against his will, that he was just strapped to a sled and sent screaming down an icy track. It also bothers me that they have to keep their head up like they do, in order to steer. It hurts my neck to watch the luge.
Don't even get me STARTED on NASCAR.
I also enjoy the World Cup, again not for the sport, but for the sense of global unity. I'm an Anglophile, and I think it's adorable how worked up the Brits get over their game. A nice thing about soccer is that I can turn on a match on TV, take a nap, wake up an hour later, and not have missed anything except sixty minutes of guys running around. I'm shocked to see if there's any kind of score. It's comforting in a way.
So, I chose not to waste any more of the fisherman's time today. Let him move on a girl who will look cute in his oversize football jersey and who will coo and croon over bowls and balls and those stick-things that jocks use to hit stuff with. I'm happy to be on my couch, watching Cary Grant movies.
