Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Lol

I would like to congratulate myself for not posting a long confessional post i drafted about how I am afraid I’ve undervalued my male friendships through the years

Future biographers would have loved that shit but no dice

Future biographers? As in you in 10 years?

Hope not. If i ever write a book, I think I need a better subject.

sometimes you come upon the work, sometimes the work comes to you

treeship is actually a celebrity already, but which one?

Tony Robbins

It’s hilarious you guys haven’t realized I’m lindsay lohan

The Teaches of Treeshes

omg

sarahell can you say more about why wanting “to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, rather than just ... listening to music?” is masculine? Is it that making quality judgments is masculine, that discourse itself is masculine, or something else?

To jump in and mansplain for a second, i don’t think she was saying that.

some sort of hierarchy (preferably a ballot-driven ranking system) is necessary in order for people to be able to understand my important opinions

why would you want to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, or assign numerical ranking to songs by bands and artists, rather than just ... listening to music?

― sarahell

when i hear something i like i want to share it with other people. just saying "here, listen to this" doesn't work with most of the people i know, though. so i wind up talking about music i like, and i don't know how to do that without comparing it to other music. polls, ranked lists, i'm not fond of this sort of advocacy of Monoculture, of canon-making, of endless fodder for stupid facebook arguments along the lines of "there's no way that record is only as good as #53!", of men making every goddamn thing into a Competition about which One is Best. having the pretext to talk about music at all, though, that i like.

IDK if this is exactly the right thread, but I've found myself in this weird limbo in the last 10 years where I like sports enough that I sometimes feel like watching, yet not enough to devote the kind of time needed to speak *fluently* about what's currently going on in them. So, e.g., I decided to watch game 5 of the WS last night and I briefly joined a conversation about it, and I can talk about the game itself but then as soon as anything goes beyond that (e.g. which pitcher previously played for who and what their career has been like) I'm suddenly mute and it probably looks obvious that I'm not a *real* sports fan. I work in a very male dominated field and it would honestly probably help me out to just be a little more able to talk sports, but whenever I try to I wind up feeling like I just look dumb.

i.e. I genuinely like sports yet don't love them and wish they weren't such a key part of the language of maleness, and I wish there was a little more open-mindedness and ecclecticism among men in my field.

I'm suddenly mute and it probably looks obvious that I'm not a *real* sports fan.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Staying mute is fine. Just nod and try to look interested in everyone else's opinions. It's jumping in with a blatantly stupid and uninformed opinion of your own that would really hurt you in the eyes of a *ahem* *real* sports fan.

and ask questions. sports fans luuuurve explaining things

i don't find that a huge issue to navigate myself so I'm not sure what to suggest. being from west central scotland football (soccer) was really the only sport that mattered - other sports were a bit more marginal and small talk didn't usually necessitate talking about them, and i was a huge fan of football with a season ticket for my team, so that was easy for me to talk about.

moved to north america and so was suddenly completely ignorant about all the sports. i like all the big sports, but can't find the time to follow them all that closely - so many leagues, so many games, so many players! - but if i small talk about hockey with someone or whatever i just preface with "haven't watched that much this year" or what have you to let them know that I'm not going to be au fait with everything and it seems to go fine

I also have the luxury of working around mostly computer people and the expectation is that 2/3rds of the already mostly-male staff don't really engage with televised sports at all, so I'm the one making an effort to reach out to a minority!

jim otm, though -- I tend to go out on sunday nights to get food after starting a load of laundry and if I end up catching a particularly interesting play or game ending when the NFL is on, I'll comment on it if my coworkers are talking about that game

they know that I probably don't know much beyond that, though

why would you want to talk about which album by a band is better than other albums by the same band, or assign numerical ranking to songs by bands and artists, rather than just ... listening to music?

I wouldn't say that I do that rather than listening to music, but I do do that, and I do want to do that, and I'm not sure I could say why, any more than I could say why I want to listen to music, for that matter.

One thing about sports talk is that I find it to be a very useful way of talking across geographic / political / social class boundaries and talking to strangers more generally. Like if you're in a bar and a game is on you can just say either "no way in hell was that pass interference" or "that was blatant pass interference, come on" and either way you are basically opening up a public conversation window.

second captains guys

I'm going away with 9 other blokes this weekend. We'll mostly eat, drink and listen to music on Friday, then have a walk on Saturday and go to the pub for a bit. Someone will cook Saturday night and we'll fall asleep watching the football. It'll be a bit bro-y at times but there are people there with tough jobs (me, being one), people going through marriage break downs, people that have got young kids; mostly we'll be talking about those things. It's not exclusionary I don't think (those left at home with the kids might argue) and it doesn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

Some of these people have been dicks in the past; I've been a dick in the past - but right now, it's a good and (generally) gentle place to be.

re: sports talk

find a few entertaining podcasts, keep up with scores/standings, and know the rules of the game, and it’ll be enough to keep a conversation going. if someone challenges you, a good way to back out is to say you wish you had more time for it.

that's good advice. i don't think anyone has an issue with somebody that enjoys watching the game but doesn't have time or capacity to get into all the background and details. i actually try to keep my sports chats with randos and coworkers at a pretty high level--i mean i could talk about the 8th or 9th guy on all 30 nba teams but that's probably the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

i advise just having no social contact with any man or woman who makes conversation about sports

find a few entertaining podcasts

― beard papa

a few! my god, beard papa, you don't beat around the bush, you just come right out and ask the impossible!

watch jon bois videos, and relentlessly redirect all conversations to athletes named Bob.

One thing about sports talk is that I find it to be a very useful way of talking across geographic / political / social class boundaries and talking to strangers more generally. Like if you're in a bar and a game is on you can just say either "no way in hell was that pass interference" or "that was blatant pass interference, come on" and either way you are basically opening up a public conversation window.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, October 28, 2019 2:21 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just tried this, but the Nats fans in the bar all turned and looked at me funny.

Lol

idgi, which I suppose ties into what I was saying upthread.

eephus! was describing a tactic that would work with American football and man alive jokingly posted that he tried it verbatim during a baseball game

Ah, I see. Thanks.

lol, second time in two days DJP has to explain my posts to someone

I got you, bro *fist bump*

tactic masculinity

I thought the joke was a reference to the bizarre interference call in the Astros/Nats baseball game last night that few fans really understood.

I usually try to casually mention my complete ignorance re: sports whenever I'm meeting another man for the first time, occasionally issuing the consolation that if he wants to rank the denizens of Star's Hollow we'll get on like gangbusters.

just talk about records until you've either cleared the room or become the life of the party

keep a laminated card in your wallet that explains the infield fly rule

I slide the phrase "well, that's not cricket!" into conversation so people know I know my sports

Cricket fans would know you're full of shit - the phrase is "it's just not cricket".

that was a trap, we wanted to flush out the cricket enthusiasts and ban them

masculinity wins again

masculinity wins so much that masculinity is getting tired of winning

the no, cricket is literally the only sport I know due to coworker pressure and when someone asks me about another sport I can only shrug because... not cricket

an errant “the” was prefaced, whoops