Football, Sci-Fi, and Loving What You Love

I don’t understand football. I’ve tried, honestly, but I just don’t get it. There are too many rules that don’t make sense and too many players to keep track of, and too many dudes who want to explain what is happening in a vaguely condescending way.

Yet, somehow, I still end up watching football all the time. Watching is probably a misrepresentation. I spend a lot of time sitting in rooms while other people angrily and emotionally yell at the tv as a bunch of dudes run around and tackle each other.

It’s not that I don’t like football on principle. It’s just that the entire culture feels so big and overwhelming and uninviting and I do a very bad job at dealing with drunk adults who yell at television sets for the players to do things when the players totally can’t hear them.

I guess a lot of what I don’t understand is how football fans (and sports fans in general) can be super in to football and it’s not strange, but when that same level of interest and enthusiasm is extended in to basically any other realm, suddenly it’s strange.

I don’t understand why it’s all kinds of acceptable to wear a jersey of your favorite basketball player but not to wear a costume based on some other media that you enjoy. I don’t understand why fantasy football teams are totally normal but fantasy role playing games are super weird. Why it’s normal to spend 100’s of dollars on football tickets but weird to spend $50 bucks on the box set of an obscure sci fi show.

I just want people to feel awesome about liking the things that they like. I want everyone to be proud of things that make them excited, and never feel strange for loving something that they love. I think there is genuinely nothing as endearing and as fun as watching someone’s face light up when they talk about something that they love with all their heart.

So maybe I’m being a little harsh on football fans. And maybe football fans are being a little harsh on me. They can have their dudes running around fields in the mud, and I can have my dudes running around SPACE in cool spaceships and all of us can feel happy that we’ve found something that we really love.

But for real though, if you attempt to explain football to me in a condescending way I will kick you in the face. Fair warning.