I have NEVER loved sports.

I am so glad I don’t like sports, because I am pretty much convinced that die-hard sports fans will die ten years before I do because of game-watching-induced heart disease. Seriously, E gets SO WORKED UP when he’s watching whatever sporting event happens to be on a given night, and he screams and yells and claps and paces the room nervously. It’s enough to get me worked up while I am innocently surfing the internet on the couch next to him.

And if his team loses? Oh, dear. Oh. Dear. He will be in a funk for hours. I don’t understand this at all, because while I have occasionally gotten absorbed in a baseball game and have experienced the euphoria of the drought-ending Red Sox World Series win in 2004, I don’t think I have ever, ever really been upset — like emotionally affected — about a loss, even for a team I have really liked. For instance, I was annoyed when the Sox lost the 2003 ALCS to the Yankees (I used to follow baseball, before E’s INSANE SPORTS FAN viewing requirements destroyed that pleasure by making a game where grown men wear knee socks Srs Bzns), but that annoyance lasted for about 2 minutes before I got over it. In contrast, E just nearly had a meltdown because his wireless card was having trouble connecting to our network after the UConn men lost a basketball game.

My aunt is married to a die-hard sports fan, and somehow they’ve negotiated this for the last 30 or so years. When we saw them recently, E and my uncle were talking about something that involves balls (but not like that), and I made some snarky comment to my aunt, who told me that she resisted the whole sports thing for years. Really put up a fight. But somewhere along the way, she got worn down, and now she really likes watching a game or two.

I doubt that’ll ever be me (I’ve tried, really I’ve tried, in the name of fun nights out eating chicken wings and drinking beer), but it won’t hurt E to dream.