You Throw Like a Girl!

I stood shyly as I propped open the door for a guy who was talking to my roommate about his pursuit to rent a car and get to the airport to collect his luggage. When their conversation finally came to a close, the guy asked me if I would join him for a game of basketball the next day.

I, as awkward as could be, told him that I’d let him know the day after. He said that I could tag along with my roommate, who was also going to the game.

The answer I gave him implied that there was a chance I could make it to the game, but it meant “no” in my language.

Deep inside, I wanted to openly reject his offer.

However, being the people-pleaser I am, I did not want to disappoint him. After all, he invited me to grab a coffee and even gave me a donut.

But, there’s more behind why I gave him a vague, unconfident answer.

Sports hasn’t always been my thing. I was never a sporty kid, and my experiences with partaking in sports over the years have done me more harm than good.

I could’ve straight-up said, “Sorry, I won’t be able to join you guys.”

But I didn’t.

And that’s because turning down an offer to join a game of basketball felt emasculating.

It sounds ridiculous when I put it like that, but it’s the truth, unfortunately.

If I were to choose between reading a book in seclusion or playing a game of soccer, I would go with the former - a strange choice to many boys, but a normal one to me.

Though it may seem like I hate sports, that’s not the case at all. I’m just not that fond of it, and that’s because of the significant role my past has played in cultivating this attitude.

I never gravitated to sports as a kid like most of the guys in my age group. I was more fascinated by other activities - reading encyclopedias, watching nature documentaries, digging up shells, and creating art. Due to my nature, I was put under the “nerd” label by most, some of whom told me straightforwardly, and the rest, whose demeanors did all the talking.

One of the first sports I played as a kid was cricket. To the American, “cricket” probably refers to the grasshopper’s cousin. To the average Indian, however, it’s an emotion, and even that’s a huge understatement.

Back then, I had no clue how to play the game. My friends were obsessed with cricket, which forced me to participate in the sport as I did not want to be left out. While I kind of have a grasp of how the game goes now, I still cannot properly explain to someone the rules of cricket. This admission is a very risky move on my part because it could get my Desi card revoked, which in itself is absurd.

Many Indians consider cricket to be an essential constituent of Indianness. While this phenomenon is not exclusive to the subcontinent, the cricket culture there is strong.

You would think that cricket is India’s national sport, which isn’t true. India doesn’t even have a national sport. When I was a little kid, it was widely believed that field hockey was the country’s official national sport, but this was denied in The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ response to an RTI query filed by a seventh-grader in 2012.

When I played cricket, I was usually the bowler, responsible for pitching the ball to the batsman, or a fielder, responsible for catching the ball and getting people “out.”

I was kind of clueless for the most part, but I tried my best to contribute to my team’s efforts. Despite my abysmal skills, my friends were very accommodating. Except for one boy.

While playing a classic game of street cricket, I did not throw the ball toward the batsman properly. Instead, my throw was aimless and miscalculated, which caused the ball to bounce off somewhere else, and which was far from ideal from a cricketing perspective, and the batsman's perspective.

Following my genuine mistake, the boy shouted at me in anger for my poor throw. Thankfully, a precious friend of mine, who was also playing, defended me and told the boy that mistakes are part of the learning experience - wise words for a first-grader.

While I was taken aback by the boy’s fiery display of rage back then, it wasn’t all that surprising.

Take a look at this article by NDTV from 2009:

“Toast of the nation when he returned with the title two years back, life came full cycle for Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Monday with irate fans burning his effigy in his home town after India failed to defend the title in the Twenty20 World Cup in England.

Dhoni’s apology to the nation after the heart-breaking three-run defeat against England could not placate the agitated mob, which held the Indian captain responsible for failing to defend the title they had won in 2007.”

Considering the backlash Dhoni faced for his team’s loss, I was fortunate enough to survive that encounter with my head still intact.

The fickle-mindedness of children meant that their intense obsession for cricket was going to dampen for at least a while, and that’s exactly what happened.

Gradually, I fell out of love with cricket, even though I was never in love with it, and moved on to football, or soccer as people like to call it in some regions.

Football was comparatively easier for me to understand since I found the rules to be pretty straightforward. I assumed the position of the defender, which, to me, meant that I had to just kick the ball away from the goalpost like my life depended on it.

I guess I was decent because I was selected to be a part of the top five football players of my class in third grade, with the team appropriately being called The Top Five.

There were weekly matches, and after tons of hard work, our team reigned supreme.

I went on to play football in my spare time as well. I played football because I wanted to play it, and not because I was indirectly dragged by my friends. Football gave me a well-needed confidence boost and changed my outlook on sports for the better.

As with any sport, there were episodes of conflict and argument, but they weren’t significant enough to tarnish my experience. Toxicity was there but rare.

As a football-loving child, I did not fear being talked down or looked down on by other players very much.

The one I was scared of was our PE teacher - or PT sir as we call it in India.

He was the spitting image of the typical PT sir. He loved spewing venom, but I consider myself fortunate because the venom he sprayed was not as toxic as those spat out by the PT sirs from other schools who downright abused their students.

Our PT sir played volleyball in his heydays, and he forced us to do the same, which satisfied nobody. We all hated it. Volleyball from time to time was fine, but there was a point in time when all we did was serve volleyball after volleyball while being held at gunpoint.

I believed that volleyball was definitely not for me, but I somehow qualified to represent my team in the school volleyball game after fluking my way through the selection round.

While I didn’t do much in the actual game, I did get to serve once, which gave my team a point and made me believe that I had contributed to my team’s victory in some way.

Shot put was also memorable. I vividly remember participating in the qualifier and kind of fumbling my throw, which caused my PT sir to shout, “Are you a girl?!”

Once everyone was done with their turns, it turned out that I had actually placed third for my lousy attempt of a throw, which was just one place short of qualifying for the actual event.

Whenever a boy made a mistake or underperformed, it was customary for our PT sir to hurl nonsense at him. He would either curse in Tamil or ask the boy if he was a girl. In my case, his insult was not only nonsensical and offensive but also premature.

“Like a girl” - I hate that this is used as an insult.

Over time, we were allowed to play football again, but that didn’t seem to last too long as we were eventually forced to play basketball. That happened because our school did not fulfill the requirements for an acceptable football field according to a law that had been passed in the state.

Basketball was not fun. I couldn’t understand what was going on half of the time. Many people thought that basketball would fit me like a glove since I was tall, which, again, didn’t sit right with me. I mean, you’re short. Do you play miniature golf?

There were times when things would get pretty heated during basketball, which I did not like at all.

And that’s when I decided to switch to badminton.

I’d say that badminton is the sportI play the best - my best being below average for the average person.

While I was initially someone who was drawn to team sports, all the fighting turned me off and made me move on to badminton.

My time playing badminton was good, except for that one time I scraped my knee badly during a qualifier and couldn’t walk for a week due to the severity of my injury.

As school life was wrapping up, I noticed that almost everyone around me had some sort of trophy or medal to represent a sporting achievement of theirs.

I did not, and I was looked down for it.

In high school, there were two award ceremonies for the winners of the annual Sports Day - one for the track events and the rest for the remaining sports that took place on school premises.

In the first ceremony, almost all of my classmates were called on to the stage to receive a medal and have their photograph taken with the chief guest. I didn’t think too much about not winning anything until a classmate snarkily asked me why I was attending the event even though I hadn’t won a medal.

Being the sensitive guy I am, it hurt me. I thought that sports was all about participation and having fun, and I actually participated in a few sports this time around following a long period of dormancy.

However, for that guy, not having a sports victory was an insult to one’s masculinity. Having something to commemorate a sporting achievement was the pinnacle of his masculinity journey.

You may think that this is too dramatic of an inference from a one-off incident, but I was his classmate for two years, and what he told me at that point was saddening but not shocking at all, keeping in mind all my observations of him and his friends as of then.

On the day of the second portion of Sports Day that took place on the track field, I was dragged away from my position as a first-aid committee member and onto the track to represent my team for the relay race on account of a player shortage.

Four teams were supposed to take part in the event, but one of them had been disqualified as they did not have enough runners. Thus, there were only three participating teams, and my team came last in the race. Still, we came in third, and I stood proudly on the podium with my teammates and my shiny bronze medal. However, whenever I recount this tale to somebody else, I make sure not to tell them that only three teams had participated.

Sports aren’t bad, as I mentioned earlier. What I noticed, however, was that people around me were playing sports in such a way that they eroded its values. I noticed that cheating, verbal abuse, physical altercations, bullying, and hazing had become rife. No longer was sports used as a means to develop teamwork, confidence, and resilience, but as a mere way to stroke one’s ego and establish one’s “manliness” over those of others.

Hazing, a form of bullying, is an extremely damaging occurrence that happens very frequently in places like locker rooms. The rituals that victims were and are put through are horrific.

Here is an excerpt from an article by the Los Angeles Times:

“He didn’t want his Mater Dei teammates to soak his locker in urine.

The 170-pound football player told his parents the fear of retribution prompted him to agree to fight a more experienced 235-pound teammate in the middle of a Mater Dei locker room.

The smaller player, who had yet to play a game for the Monarchs, had been publicly challenged by a third player to compete in the brutal initiation game known as “Bodies,” an organized fight between two players with punches supposedly limited to the torso. The smaller player knew what could happen if he refused to participate.

He had seen the bullying, the teasing, the name-calling and, worst of all, he had seen the lockers of outcasts drenched in urine. He didn’t want to risk enduring that abuse. This was his ticket to acceptance.”

While I did not witness hazing comparable to the magnitude as described in the article, I did see guys around me do some nasty stuff to newcomers or those they perceived as weak. What was more depressing to see was that the victims would often defend the “ragging” as they wanted to be included and because being a male victim of abuse is shameful in society and detracts from their masculinity.

While there are people out there who play sports as sports, I was unlucky to be under an atmosphere that was not so inviting and fruitful.

Yet, despite my seeming distaste for sports, my experience is surely not reflective of everyone else’s experiences. There are people who have managed to reap the benefits of sports and utilize their acquired qualities and skills to develop themselves for the better. There are people who were under an atmosphere conducive to self-improvement.

I also encourage children to take up at least one sport as its health-giving and character-developing advantages generally outweigh its dark side.

As an adult, I’m not into sports anymore. I don’t feel the need. I get my daily fix of physical activity through intense walking and at-home exercise.

When it comes to immersing myself in sports culture, I don’t have much interest. I do like watching the Olympics and seeing underappreciated sports thrive, but that’s pretty much it. The other day, a co-worker was excited to find that I had been born in Miami. He immediately asked me if I supported Miami Heat following the revelation of my birthplace.

When I express to another male that I don’t want to join their game of cricket or watch a game of rugby with them, I am met with a sigh of disappointment.

Some people list out all the popular sports to me so that they can find out which sport I like. I usually end up saying badminton even though I no longer play it. If I’m feeling a bit bold, I tell them in a direct manner that I’m not really into sports, which, for some reason, stuns them. I am a man…who isn’t into sports…unbelievable. Very visible disappointment accompanies their surprise. Too bad they can’t talk about sports stuff with me, especially considering I’m a man.

There are so many other areas I’m interested in, but most people don’t care because they are traditionally non-masculine and “boring.” Call me up to have a conversation about bird watching or language learning and I’ll be at your place before you can even put your phone down.

Sports culture is intimidating. The day of an important football or basketball match is often characterized by the consumption of loads of alcohol, especially by men, who perform crazy and often destructive acts during the period.

This article by Psychology today highlights a harsh statistic on such days:

“Amid a global pandemic and national civil strife, the 2020 football season is underway. While many rejoice in the comfort and familiarity of watching their favorite NFL team on television, an insidious and little-known relationship exists between NFL games and rates of domestic violence.

A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics examined police reports of violent incidents on Sundays during the professional football season (Card & Dahl, 2011). The analysis revealed that “upset losses” (i.e., defeats when the home team was predicted to win by four or more points) correlated with a 10 percent increase in the rate of domestic violence. The rise in violence after an upset loss was concentrated to a very narrow time window at the end of the game and was larger for more important games (i.e., games against rivals and the playoffs). Considering that only a small subset of the population can be defined as serious football fans, this community-wide increase of domestic violence is a strikingly large finding.

Other studies examining sports outside of the United States have found similar results. For example, a 2013 study from the United Kingdom found that police reports of domestic violence rose by 38 percent after matches in which the national soccer team played and lost (Kirby, Francis, and O’Flaherty, 2013). In Canada, one study found that calls to a domestic violence hotline rose by 15 percent when the local soccer team was simply playing. (Boutilier, et al., 2017).”

When so much unnecessary importance is placed on sports, be it due to sheer love, wanting to strengthen one’s manliness, or treating it like a religion, its very spirit is demolished.

Sometimes just a man witnessing another man play on the court isn’t enough. What if that player you’re watching is seen as a weak player, or worse, not “manly” enough? That becomes another issue.

On February 4th, 2022, volleyball player Kim In-hyeok was found dead in his home at the age of 26. Despite his talent, he had to constantly battle derogatory and malicious comments about his looks and personal life. He did not conform to the standards of masculinity set by society. Many men were so insecure and hateful that they resorted to creating rumors and sending him hurtful messages.

This is what Kim In-Hyeok had to say on his Instagram account (translation obtained from KBIZoom):

“For the past 10 years, people have misunderstood me. I thought that ignoring them would be the best, but now I am exhausted. None of you have ever seen me up close, and you know nothing about me, and yet you constantly bully me with your hateful comments. Please stop, I’m so tired of them.”

The volleyball court was where he was supposed to shine, which he did. But he couldn’t enjoy every minute of it due to the wrongful hate thrown at him for simply existing and being himself.

While the rudeness I faced and the sadness I felt cannot even be compared to what Kim In-Hyeok went through, I can understand it and relate to it to an extent - a small extent, but I can relate to it nevertheless.