Clear eyes, full hearts, please don’t make it close

Or: why I had to quit F1 Fantasy and I’m already worried about Mbappé

I’m not sure why I agreed to a family outing to Top Golf when I had never actually swung a non-miniature golf club before, but I think I was so excited to find an activity that appealed to two very different teens AND had cocktails that I didn’t realize I would have to participate.

It did not go well. I was terrible. At one point, I hit a ball into another family’s bay (which the set up is literally designed to make near impossible), and then the low point was when Jeff offered some unsolicited and wildly original tips like “keep your eye on the ball” and “relax.” My attitude directly correlated to the final scores and when we left, Middle said something like “that would have been more fun if you’d been having a good time, Karen.”

Yes, it would have.

That’s the thing about sports: I am not good at them and yet, I still care when I lose. And it translates outside of the rare times I have dabbled in athleticism. I am not able to be a casual sports fan because if I care a little, I care SO MUCH.

All of this came back in my mind recently with the 20th anniversary of “Friday Night Lights” and while I’m eternally grateful to the show for teaching me more about football than I ever learned from my high school friend’s instructional powerpoint, and the world is eternally grateful for the introduction of Tim Riggins, I do think it got me way too invested in the story lines in sports. My assumption was that any high drama/high stakes moment would end in, if not a happy way, then a way that served a larger narrative: that my investment of time and loyalty in any team would be rewarded.

Unnecessary Tim Riggins photo just because I care. (Photo courtesy of IMDB)

While I was never really a local sports fan — and distinctly remember going to an Eagles-Giants game with that same high school friend where it was so cold that I started mentally rooting for the Giants so that there wouldn’t be a tie because I wanted to go home — I never felt that way about the Dillon Panthers or other on-screen athletes. I remember the Titans, I know there’s no crying in baseball, and I learned tall girls can find love in basketball and with their hot next door neighbors.

Once we leave scripted scenarios, if I have any opinion on the sport/team/player, it’s just too much. When a game gets close, I have to turn it off. Jeff claims that’s when everyone else starts watching and is what defines a “good game,” but I literally can’t handle it. I get stressed, I end up online looking for spoilers but it’s live so that’s not even possible. Those little tickers that show the statistical chances of winning in real time aren’t helpful when it’s close and I’m having panic attacks.

I think real sports fans have made peace with some level of suffering and casual fans don’t care enough to suffer… and I’m in a purgatory that’s entirely the result of my own psychosis. I am invested, I need resolution, and often I don’t like that resolution.

Netflix and HBO’s commitment to sports docuseries has made this so much worse because suddenly I do get a bunch of narrative that helps me invest. “Drive to Survive” got me all in on F1 and I fell for Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton and was introduced to an actual live villain in Christian Horner (a.k.a. Mr. Ginger Spice). Then suddenly, I’m trying to keep up with the 2021 World Championships while doing a remote holiday baking class and am getting physically ill realizing that Max Verstappen was going to win. I never made those raspberry pinwheel cookies again because of the PTSD.

A year or two later, a friend suggested I do an F1 Fantasy League with her and I had to drop out after three races: I could lose the Fantasy League and stick with Lewis or I could bet on Red Bull and do well points wise. Neither was a fate I could consider: but is that fandom or just obsessive loyalty to a constructed narrative?

The cycling equivalent of “Drive to Survive” got me obsessed with the Tour de France but then all of these riders are overcoming multiple broken bones and punctured lungs and maybe still doping. It’s incredibly impressive but I can’t handle that much stress when I should just be enjoying the scenic French countryside and not even knowing who Wout Van Aert is and being upset about whether he was robbed of a stage win.

I fell in love with this (beautifully written) essay about Caitlin Clark and it totally got me into women’s college basketball and the WNBA (although it didn’t take much since Monica Wright-McCall paved the way). Unfortunately, now every game she plays is a referendum on whether she’s living up to the hype or disappointing everyone, and there’s a verdict attached outside of the score based on how she acts or what clips are taken out of context. She’s either proving something or failing to prove something and the noise has added a layer of complexity and competition on top of everything else.

I’m going to skip over Olympic figure skating for the most part since I already covered that in depth and it’s not relevant for 3.8 more years but just as I’m waiting for a heroic win in Ice Dance for Chock and Bates, I find out the French judge literally rigged it and I’m sitting there, in real time, knowing everything I know and having no place to take my anger. Sitting: correct and alone. I didn’t just lose that day, I was ROBBED and no amount of context-setting with Jeff ever got him to a place of fully understanding my feelings.

Although, obviously, I didn’t lose. Because I was just watching… which is exactly the issue: I am not a sports person. I am just an intense and competitive person seeking an outlet.

We are about a week away from the start of the World Cup where I will, comme toujours, root for France. The US men’s team isn’t going anywhere and I am obviously the kind of person who will correct you on your pronunciation of crêpe — where that kind of person is a college French major — so it’s a natural fit.

Unfortunately, I only pay attention to men’s soccer once every four years so just as I’m checking back in on Kylian Mbappé, I’m learning that he’s recovering from injury, that recovery went slower than expected because the team MRIed the wrong leg(?), he might not be as good, he’s causing discord on Real Madrid, and it’s just exhausting and the World Cup hasn’t even started. Yet, intensity addict that I am, I’m down the rabbit hole trying to make sure I know what’s up for his first game on June 16.