esrosedotblog

FOOTBALL MIGRAINE

Mark Allen has caught it exactly.

Is Gay Men's Distaste for Football Innate?

Actually, he does not answer that question. He does, however, list the symptoms and experience of a gay man who does not "get" team sports.

That is me.

I identify completely.

When I was a kid, I could play softball. Get it? Soft. Not hard. Or rather I thought I could play softball.

But when I was on a real team they always put me in right field. Wait. Is that right? Is that the one where the ball doesn't get hit very often? Yes. I think.

See? I still don't know.

As far as hitting was concerned, I whiffed a lot and was really worried I would get hit by the ball.

Shit, I worried I would get hit with the ball in right field. Or that it would sting when I caught it, if I did.

For a brief period, I had a roll-on with pitching. But it was slow pitch and it went away the first time that anyone paid much attention to me. The clutch.

I was clueless for basketball. We had to play it in gym. It was one of the two sports played by any school team in the area I grew up.

When basketball came up as the gym subject, if I could know about it in advance, I would get the sniffles and have an excuse from gym from my mother.

Joe Murray, the gym teacher, caught onto this. A Marine, Joe was not to be fooled or deterred. He threw me on the court. Shirts and skins.

I sort of liked that part. For the wrong reasons.

I prayed they would not pass the ball to me. I appeared to be active by being the one to throw the ball from out of, what is that when it goes over the lines. Anyway. It was a moment to stand still. I could throw it.

See, I never learned to dribble. I could not do it. If I got the ball I would pass it or run with it and get the whistle. "Walking".

They did teach "fundamentals". But I never learned any.

I would do the best I could at dribbling (not at all) and jumping a shot into the basket. I was sort of good at foul shots. But since I always stayed as far from the ball as possible in any game, I rarely got fouled.

It was a disaster. I hated it.

Fast forward.

I tried later in life to learn golf. The first game I played I did pretty well but then the curse came down on me. The curse? Not giving a shit.

The same as with basketball. I didn't give a shit there either. Nor in softball if they were going to have a real game.

Eventually, I just gave up on the team.

I did play sports though. Later. In college. Nothing heavy. Not anything competitive. I sailed. I swam. I learned that off a team I would give a shit. I was pretty good.

I was very good at ROTC drill. Weird huh? No. Not at all. Think "control".

So.

Since I never played any team sport I never bothered to watch anyone play it either.

When I did, I found that I didn't understand it at all. Not the plays, not the enthusiasm, not the rules, not the whole fucking thing.

And I still do not today.

Hockey? I never understood icing. I have watched my son be a goalie, I understand that. But I don't get anything else. Nothing.

Football? Please. We never even had it in our school

The other football? Soccer? Not one thing happens for the longest time. Nothing. Running up and down. It is better than US football because there are scant costumes and they take their shirts off if they win. But this is scant payback for the time wasted in watching.

When I went to college, I began to run. I ran and ran and ran and, later in life, I could even run competively because what is more amazing is that there were hundreds of people who also didn't give a shit. They were just running. I was not going to be first and I was not going to be last and the middle was one big friendly mob of people who, like me, probably hated team sports as much as I did.

Now. The gay thing.

Here is my theory. It rests on an early separation from the father. Most straight boys identify deeply with their dad who encourages them and helps them get into sports. Gay boys, now watch this, figure out very early. Four? Earlier? That they are different. This is not a sob story thing. We are different.

We are all raised by straight people except now, for the lucky ones, some get to have gay dads.

My father quickly learned or got this. He understood because he didn't get team sports either. He would spend hours watching professional wrestling on teevee. This was the old days when it was at least realistic.

I often wondered if he had missed the gene too. I don't know if he was gay or not but he sure got excited about wrestling.

I liked to watch that too. But it was not a team. It was not a sport. I couldn't go anywhere and do it.

I still have a photo of Antonino Rocca in my erotic photo collection. Ahhh.

My Dad though. The one thing he did like to do, hunting and fishing, was out of my interest zone. I had antipathy. I just couldn't kill anything. Period. That is not so unusual actually. There are a lot less hunters and fishermen than there are football addicts.

Traditional dads had no way to deal with this huge gap. They just gave up. As my Dad did.

Finally he found a connection with me. Work. We both liked to do that, for money not at home. And he hired me to work in his store. And I was good at it.

We had detoured our bonding from sports to something else.

Gay men who like sports? They have managed to find a way through with their Dad who in the modern era are more inclined to let nature take its course with kids. And there are more options. Kids, gay or straight, don't have to be on team sports. They don't know their sons are gay, if they are, but they know that the sons need some special handling and, apparently, a lot of them know how to give it.

Also, most gay athletes went to bigger schools than I did. They can find a way in with their friends.

But this is a small theory. It is too personal. It doesn't cover the territory.

Today? I married a man with the same deficit as me. There is no football in our house. None. No baseball either. Shit, no television.

We are out of the loop eternally.

Do we care? Not a bit. We still simply do not give a shit.

See that kid?

That kinda fat kid?

The one sort of hugging the dummy?

I will bet ten to one that he is gay. Or will be.

Look at the coach.

See that look?

That. Right there. That is what ruins it for a lot of gay kids.

Where did I get this photo? It was right there on the third line of google images under "football in grade school". The first photo I looked at. That is me.

Not giving a shit and not getting it at all. Next gym class? This kid will bring an excuse from his mom.

Labels: gay life, gay sports