What (not) to do if you don’t like sports

Let’s say you don’t like watching sports. You have no interest in the World Series, the BCS, or the NBA Finals. I think that’s okay. It’s okay to not pay attention to sports. It’s okay to flip past ESPN on your TV. But here’s what’s not okay to do:

• Make fun of people for liking to watch sports.
• Derisively dismiss sports as “sportsball”.
• Assume people are dumb because they like to watch sports.

If you are a geek about my age, you may have not-so-fond memories of being ridiculed when you were a teenager for having geeky interests. You may remember people teasing you for socializing on the Internet (something just about every teenager does today), or for being interested in Star Trek. For someone with those memories, it’s very tempting, now that geek interests are more mainstream, to turn the tables and dish out ridicule for being into sports. But you should resist the temptation because it makes you as much as a jerk as the kids who teased you. Actually, it makes you worse, because you are some decade-and-a-half older and should know better.