I don't like sports, and i don't care who knows...

Someone on facebook posted this story about a Baltimore grade school that was going to hide any kid not wearing purple to detention in the library during a "purple Friday" visit from the Raven.

Of course, the fun-hating cynic in me skipped the whole "school crushing nonconformists" angle and wonders why we are pulling kids out of class to have them cheer for a football team. No wonder the Chinese - and a ton of other countries - outscore us on math tests. I bet they never pull kids of out school to root for a football team.

But the other aspect of this is that i'm an anomaly. Not only am I a person who doesn't root for the home in a city (and county) that paints itself purple, I don't root for any team, in any sport. I don't take part in the office fantasy team pool, or wear team shirts to work, or spend my weekends in front of a TV. And that's not just limited to football season. I ignore a wide world of sports, from football to baseball to hockey and basketball.

I suppose part of it is nurture - neither of parents had much interest in sports. And since I was pretty much the fat, last-picked kid throughout school, I developed a certain dislike of participating in anything athletic, which extended to watching it as well.

I no longer have quite the dislike for athletes that I did as a kid - I now work out regularly, and run (err, walk quickly) in the occasional road race, so I have an understanding of how much work it must take to be a professional athlete. But I still have no desire to watch it.

I don't begrudge people who enjoy watching sports - everyone has their own hobbies. Given that my spare time is spent doing things like watching all 483 Republican primary debates and going to flea markets, I can't really criticize people who like to watch football, or whatever.

But sports have gone from a hobby - from what people do in their spare time - to something that seems to pervade every part of daily life. Purple-lit buildings. Stores and workplaces full of people dressed like they are about to tackle someone. It makes me feel even more like an outcast that I'm not participating. Which is pretty much how I feel about the world of people who actually seem to have relationships, but unlike my inability to find love, I really have no desire to join the world of the sports fanatics. I just wish their world was a little more contained and didn't leak into mine so much.