Football
I'm a bloke and football disappoints me on several levels:

1. The players fall over at the slightest provocation even when, if they stayed on their feet, they'd get a chance on goal instead of hoofing the ball into row Z.

2. It's boring. There aren't enough goals - in most other sports there's a consistent rate of scoring to keep me interested or at least some real effort going on.

3. (And this is my main gripe) most blokes use it as a topic to talk about when they don't have anything interesting to say. I have to pay attention to this crappy sport so that when I'm in the company of other males I can join in with "Oh wasn't it striking how Russia folded against Spain considering how well they played against Holland?" instead of topics not covered by The Sun.
Most of my friends are female in part, I think, because there's none of this talking about crap that blokes do. Even when talking to colleagues in IT you find that they've just swapped football for some weird fanatasism for brands of technology or operating systems.

Maybe it's male friendships I'm disappointed in.
(vicarius, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 19:55, 6 replies)

Yes!
Come, come over to the dark side and be with us.

You know you want to : )
( girlinthehole, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 19:58, closed)

It's actually the bright side
The dark side is where I am at the moment - stuck trying to make friends with a gender which idolises Ronaldinho who looks like Plug from the Bast St Kids (and I had to google to find out if it was Ronaldinho or Ronaldo who I was thinking of).

The bright side seems to be women who don't seem to have default topics of conversation.
(vicarius, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 20:51, closed)

Apart from
shoes?

Saying that, women do seem to have much more interesting conversations a lot of the time than guys.
Now if we could just convince more to be Engineers we might be able to shake off the high tech/football boffinry image...
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 0:12, closed)

football -- it's not only about the goals
... it's about the trajectories and interplay of the players and the ball; of the multiple small interchanges and battles making up the whole of the game.

Try watching the whole game, perhaps? You might well still not like it, but obsessing about goals and only the goals is not a good place to start.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 15:01, closed)

Yeah, I've done that.
I watched some good matches occasionally in Euro 2008 but in general it's disappointing considering the hype and I've seen lots.

The best thing I can say about it is that it's not cricket.
(vicarius, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 19:44, closed)

As for #2
Try going Tottenham every other Saturday, plenty of goals but not all in the 'right' end!!
(KangerooFlapjack, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 19:49, closed)