U
/u/theironphist
Guest
As a long time sports fan, my own fandom has evolved over the years to resemble something akin to the oft maligned 'fair weather' fan, or someone seeming to only show interest in a team while they're successful.
There's this prevailing idea among sports fans that you need to suffer and really feel the misery during your teams downturns to be allowed to feel the joy when they're back on top. It really glorifies adults letting a teams triumphs or failures dictate their general mood, sometimes over much of their lifetime. And as I've gotten older and had to deal with all the stressors of life I realized that letting my sports team become one of them was absurd.
Don't get me wrong, if my team is doing poorly (I'm an avid Colorado Avalanche fan) I'm not going to jump ship and start supporting someone else that's doing better. Those are my guys, and I don't plan on that changing anytime soon. But I remember during our tougher years just being absolutely riddled with stress or frustration on a regular basis due to their performance, and as I started to work more on regulating my anxiety, I realized it might be helpful to compartmentalize my fandom a little more. At first it felt like sports sacrilege, but now if I notice myself getting too tense watching the game I might switch it over to a show or movie I like, and if we're in a bad stretch or I'm just having an anxious spell, I may not watch a few games in a row, and instead just check the scores periodically while keeping up with other interests.
Last year during our difficult first round against the Stars, a friend asked me something about a game and I told him that I had switched it off to watch something else, and he seemed truly taken aback by that. I didn't give him some long explanation about why, but I was already in a stressful space, and watching us struggle in an important game was truly making me feel worse, and rather than force myself to sit through it and be a 'true fan' I just moved on so I could finish my night on a better note.
Now obviously some people are better at moving on from a loss than others. Not every sports fan is an emotional mess throughout the season, but there's so many that are, and it's such normalized behavior. I realized it wasn't healthy for me to live like that anymore, so I now proudly plant my flag as (somewhat) fairweather sports fan.
submitted by /u/theironphist
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There's this prevailing idea among sports fans that you need to suffer and really feel the misery during your teams downturns to be allowed to feel the joy when they're back on top. It really glorifies adults letting a teams triumphs or failures dictate their general mood, sometimes over much of their lifetime. And as I've gotten older and had to deal with all the stressors of life I realized that letting my sports team become one of them was absurd.
Don't get me wrong, if my team is doing poorly (I'm an avid Colorado Avalanche fan) I'm not going to jump ship and start supporting someone else that's doing better. Those are my guys, and I don't plan on that changing anytime soon. But I remember during our tougher years just being absolutely riddled with stress or frustration on a regular basis due to their performance, and as I started to work more on regulating my anxiety, I realized it might be helpful to compartmentalize my fandom a little more. At first it felt like sports sacrilege, but now if I notice myself getting too tense watching the game I might switch it over to a show or movie I like, and if we're in a bad stretch or I'm just having an anxious spell, I may not watch a few games in a row, and instead just check the scores periodically while keeping up with other interests.
Last year during our difficult first round against the Stars, a friend asked me something about a game and I told him that I had switched it off to watch something else, and he seemed truly taken aback by that. I didn't give him some long explanation about why, but I was already in a stressful space, and watching us struggle in an important game was truly making me feel worse, and rather than force myself to sit through it and be a 'true fan' I just moved on so I could finish my night on a better note.
Now obviously some people are better at moving on from a loss than others. Not every sports fan is an emotional mess throughout the season, but there's so many that are, and it's such normalized behavior. I realized it wasn't healthy for me to live like that anymore, so I now proudly plant my flag as (somewhat) fairweather sports fan.
submitted by /u/theironphist
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...