Of Men and Their Very Significant and Important Hobbies!

Something I’m realizing as I spend more time observing heterosexual men is how much they think their hobbies and interests are superior to ours and such a priority but also how they throw a childish fit when we don’t hold the same awe and adoration for their interests. Example: I’ve never given a single fuck about sports and I never even went through that phase where we pretend to care. I had a girlfriend in college who went through this phase to be a cool girl and I remember almost grabbing her by the lapels at some point and just going “Are you really happy caring about this shite? Like really?! If not you can tell me and we can run off together just blink twice sis”.  I don’t care for the concept of loud men gathering to watch their favorite men duel on the field to whatever the fuck end knowing the average sporting event is just a bunch of loud passionate rambunctious males drinking alcohol and ready to get very emotional if their favorite team wins or loses. I don’t care for the betting and bullshit associated.  No thank you. 

So color me shocked when I noticed some men expect their wives/ partners to take time out of their day to host these barbaric events. I’d rather die than “fire up the grill” and open up my living space to a bunch of men like this. Another observation is this emotional attachment to sports and acting like if they don’t engage in their little sport show of the day the world will end. The guy who gets home and immediately takes his clothes off and plops on the couch to watch “a very important game!” while his wife is hustling and tussling with their bad ass kids in the background trying to make dinner and clean and he’s refusing to “HeLP” comes to mind. Bonus points if he has a “mancave” he gets to escape to while his female partner would never even imagine having a space to herself away from him/the kids. 

Another way this shows is that moment during the date when he immediately centers his hobbies as the legitimate human hobbies worth talking about and dwelling on and brushes past ours in the conversation like they are irrelevant. This has happened to me so much “So, how’d you think the Dodgers did this season?”. Thanks for asking, I actually dgaf and don’t know who they are at all. Instead of working around this and talking about anything else we might have in common (something we women have been doing our whole lives!)  the average guy would proceed to just go ahead and talk about the Dodgers any way and use it as an excellent opportunity to educate this lowly uncultured woman, concluded with “Anyway, at some point we should go to a game together”. Here I am confused. In the last 10 minutes I have shown absolutely no interest in this topic, I have very obviously been dissociating throughout that passionate monologue, I’ve physically restrained myself from kicking you to stop talking about the fucking Dodgers underneath this table, but please yes sure.  Hey btw would he like to know more about my hobbies too? Do I have any? All he focused on was my dress that he liked and taking me to this Dodger’s game. 

And PLEASE spare me with “Let men enjoy things!” retorts because that's the crux of the issue:  we let men enjoy too much at the cost of everything. I'm yet to meet a man who does not forsake his adult responsibilities especially within the context of the living space to prioritize his hobbies. “Let me finish they hours long video game, my wife is NAGGING me again about cleaning”, “I have golfing with the boys all weekend so fuck my wife and kids hehe”. So….what about her hobbies? What about OUR hobbies? Are we even allowed to have them to the same extent especially when we start to cohabit and live together and raise kids and find out how domestic labor is somehow our default responsibility? Well I have a new hobby. My new hobby is to never ever have to hear a man tell me about how important his hobbies are while completely ignoring his responsibilities and the wants and needs of the people around him.

TLDR: Once again, I am mf TIRED.