Sunday’s blog post is going to veer slightly from the topic of morality and shades of gray but will be in line with the last few posts about sex and relationships. For that I’m writing about double standards and gender norms. This week’s rant kind of fits with that, it’s also something I’ve only recently become able to admit, even to myself.

I don’t like football. Heck, I don’t even like sports in general. I’m not the most athletic, never have been, and in school I was always the last one picked for a team or very close to it. As much as I don’t like to play sports, watching them is even worse.

Sticking with football for example, it’s a bunch of fat men in tights chasing a ball around a field. Soccer is a bunch of skinny guys in shorts chasing a ball and scoring even less often. Then there’s basketball with a bunch of tall guys chasing a ball in doors. Sure, there’s women’s basketball and soccer, but [redacted]. Watching people I don’t know throw or kick a ball around just doesn’t interest me.

Of course I live in Boise, a city that’s home to one of the nation’s best college football teams, so everybody here is really into their Broncos. As much as I don’t like watching professional sports, college sports is even worse. For the most part they really suck. The only time I found that interesting was when I was in college and I knew people on the team (although we didn’t have a football team). If I knew people on the BSU team it would be one thing, but I don’t. I also didn’t go to school there and didn’t grow up here. They may be the local team, but I seriously couldn’t care less. Unfortunately I still get asked if I’m going to watch the game, if I watched the game, or what I thought of the game several times ever weekend they’re playing.

It’s not like I didn’t try to like football. I watched it every Sunday when I was a kid. My dad and my bothers don’t like football, but I felt like I needed to. I already didn’t fit in at school and was ostracized enough that I felt the need to be more “normal.” Men are supposed to like football, so I thought I would try to fit in. Fortunately I’m old enough and a mature enough now to not care.

Something about football season that really annoys me is how into it a lot of guys are. I really don’t get why they would care about who the starters are on 10 different NFL teams, what every quarterback’s completion ratio is, or what every team’s standings are. That has absolutely no bearing on anything that’s really going on in these people’s lives. Then again, I’m sure some of them find my fascination with science, history, and computing to be equally pointless and annoying.

I’m just looking forward to the end of football season, especially since that’s when the one game I watch every year is, the Super Bowl.