I have to get something off my chest.  Something that has plagued me since I was a child.  I have a dark secret that makes me different than many of you...

I don't like sports

There... I said it...

I dislike almost every sport that I can think of.  In fact, I can't even say I want to like them, because I don't.  I am quite content being immune to their seductive dance.  I don't feel as if their absence has left a gaping hole in my life.

Ok, this really isn't really that much of a secret.  I am actually quite open about it with everybody I meet.  But, no matter how honest I am, it is a concept that never ceases to confuse sports fans.  You see, they cannot seem to comprehend a world without sports.  To them, it's like saying you don't like Oxygen (the element, not the channel).

Sports Fan: You see the game last night?

Me: No, sorry, I don't watch any sports.

Sports Fan: ...you mean... you didn't watch any sports... last night, right?

Me: No... I mean, I don't watch any sports... ever.

Sports Fan: I... I... don't understand... so what do you do while you're drinking beer?

Me: Yeah, I don't drink beer either.

Sports Fan faints

I don't know... Perhaps there is an area of the human brain that allows (even forces) men to like sports,  If so, then that area of my brain is stunted, missing, or has been overwritten with more important data, like the proper spelling of the word "frottage".  As you can see in the diagram below, I have an otherwise normal male brain:

It's more complicated than a simple dislike of sports; I cannot even comprehend how anyone else can like most of them.  Watching Football, Soccer and Baseball is almost tolerable.  But Golf?  Fishing!?  NASCAR?!? 

Me: So... They go around the track... how many times?

Sports Fan: Five hundred.

Me: And... you... watch this... the entire time?

Sports Fan: Yes, now shush, they are changing tires, this is my favorite part.

Me: *glack* (the sound of me stabbing myself in the eye with a pen)

Whenever I am forced to attend a sporting event of some sort, I always feel completely out of place.  Like I am visiting a foreign land.  One where the "natives" paint their bodies, speak a very strange language ("...batta batta batta SWING batta batta...") and gesticulate wildly over seemingly ordinary things.

It is because of this that I often feel lost when I am around sports fans.  Like I am unable to communicate with these "natives" in a meaningful way. I find myself looking at the people around me in order to figure out how to do the most mundane things, like cheering.  I am fearful that if I don't cheer at precisely the right time they will all point at me and screech in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" fashion, identifying me as the heathen interloper as they all converge on me.  This would, naturally, then be followed by them all fighting over the choicest bits of Craig-meat which they would later use to feed their hungry sports-loving brood.

So, when I am around the more enthusiastic sports fans, I have learned a trick that masks my dislike.  I am always a fan of the rival team.  They are always way too angry to realize that I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about...

Sports Fan: Dammit!  The Rangers lost last night!

Me: Who were they playing against?

Sports Fan: The Islanders

Me: Well, then it's not surprising that they lost, the Islanders are a much better team.

Sports Fan dies from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

Sure... it may, one day, get me killed.

But it beats watching Golf.