Tuesday, May 18
Conclusions, Developed From Football
Football, it has been said, is not a game of life and death. It's much more important than that.
Recently, football has led me to do some thinking about the situation my life is in, and perhaps more specifically about the people in my life.
This is going to be quite a hard post to write, because I know that at least one, and probably more, of my housemates read this blog, and take onboard what I write here. The following is therefore a message to them:
Just read what is written here. Don't read into it. If I really felt terribly bad about it all, I would have brought it up with you already. Don't come and ask me about it, or tell me that this isn't the way to "communicate". Just read it and forget it. There are times here when I think aloud, I just write what I'm thinking without wholly thinking about it. This is one of those times. I need to vent some steam, to get something out of my system that is bugging me a little. I will bring it up properly if I think it needs to be brought up, but for now I'm just writing.
Anyway, on with the post proper.
I've noticed in the past few weeks that I've been watching football in my local pub by myself a lot more than usual. Arsenal have been (quite rightly) on TV a lot in the last month or so, and I have to go to the pub to see any game, as we don't have Sky in our house (But for some reason the four that are staying here next year, whilst three of us are abroad, have decided to get it installed this September. I distinctly remember a couple of them being dead against it last September, when it was still only £5 each per month, but now we have a change of heart. Go figure).
I generally don't like going to the pub by myself, it makes me feel very self-conscious and unliked, but such is my love of the Gooners that I've thought to myself, fuck it, I will go and watch. So there I am, standing alone in a crowd of people whilst my housemates are variously asleep, watching crap TV or doing nothing. Cheers guys.
And yet, when another team is on that one of us supports (in this case West Ham), the whole household seems to be ultra-willing to be in the pub with them, even though the game is of no consequence or interest to them. Why does this person command such willingness to be accompanied, yet I cannot muster a single person to ever go with me?!
It's not as if I don't do things with everyone else. I am supremely willing to do and join in with just about anything. I help, I fix, I mend, I organise, I do anything that anyone wants me to. I volunteer to go to the shop to get something, and always ask if anyone else wants anything whilst I'm there.
Sometimes, especially in the past week or so, I feel as if I'm being too eager, seeming as if I am desperate to be part of their group. I don't think I am eager, I'm just an amicable person, a willing person if you will. I don't know how I'm coming across to them, and at this point in time I'm fairly uninterested.
Is it so much to ask to go down the pub to watch some football? We're all football fans, and it's not as if Arsenal play crap, boring football. Take this example: the Saturday a few weeks back (the 1st), Arsenal had a game at 12.30pm. Could I convince anyone to go? Could I fuck. I can't remember if anyone else was even out of bed. Then this Saturday, West Ham had a 12.15pm kick-off. By half-time, at least 5 of us were there, with only 1 of us having any interest in the teams involved. How is this so different?!
To quote a letter given to me by a housemate at the time a few weeks back when we had an enormous falling out, the picture I paint of them and myself here is that I am bewildered by them, yet superior to them. That's not how it is. I just question sometimes (internally) how much I am a part of this household, whether I'm wanted or appreciated. Acknowledgement would be a start.
But yeah, this is just thoughts, feelings and rambling. Nothing too concrete. I guess I just need to find a few mates who are also Gooners. It can't be that hard in North London.
Oh, and whilst I'm bitching a little bit about my housemates, I'm so glad that they all now contribute to the costs of the Internet (£20+ each month so far) that I pay for, even if it only took 6 months of asking for some sort of donation to it. Oh no, that's right, they still don't contribute. I was getting confused with the ideal world in my head...
2 Comments:
good job on quoting shanks.
By 
DJ, at 3:55 AM
Chin up mate. Considered addressing this with them?
Or simply finding, not necessarily new friends, but rather, 'other' friends?
By Rufus, at 1:21 PM
