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What do you do for fun?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by novelist_wannabe, Mar 30, 2008.

  1. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    It's easy when you hate everything and everyone, isn't it, Clever?

    No problem, Mr. Sonner. That's why I'm here.

    Goodnight, all. I hear Scrubs calling in the distance.
     
  2. Clever username

    Clever username Active Member

    Oh man, is it. Wooo boy.
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Mikey, that's post-of-the-year caliber. Damn.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  4. Trey Beamon

    Trey Beamon Active Member

    Mikey, when do deep, you go all out (of course, that wasn't in reference to anything sexual :D).

    I'm the same boat when it comes to friendships. I recently made a move, but aside from co-workers and few random, legal girls on MySpace, I don't know a soul. All my friends, at least the ones I'd like to keep in contact with, live out of state.

    Then again, how does a man in his mid to late 20s seek out male friends? At work? The gym? A Star Trek convention? Unless you have some kind of pipeline in place -- ahem, a sane girlfriend -- there doesn't seem to be an easy way.
     
  5. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    I think Mikey's post speaks of something that a lot of us start to go through when we're 22-23-24-25 years old. I don't think it's just in this business, either, because I hear my non-journo friends and peers complain about it, too. But it's certainly worse in this business, which forces us to keep odd hours and work nights and weekends, and makes it hard to find opportunities to socialize. ... Anyway, at this point in our lives, it seems like: you're out in the real world, you're around a lot more people, but you're "friends" with very few. Everybody's got their own lives, or lack thereof, but we're all on our own ... largely for the first time.

    I'm still struggling with it a little bit. I've still got really, really close friends that I grew up with, and we keep in touch (never as much as we'd like), but we're all in different places and we all have different lives and that makes it harder. One of my best friends -- and former girlfriend -- who I've known since third grade is someone I haven't seen in almost a year and a half. That really, really sucks.

    But I've made friends here, mostly through work, and I'm happy with my social life. Having a wonderful girlfriend, a partner in crime, makes it a lot better, of course. We can travel together and do things together, and share experiences, and there's a lot to be said for that. I can certainly have fun doing things on my own (as I did at the Dodgers game tonight), but it's more fulfilling when you have friends to do things with. ... Still, it's a struggle, because everyone's got their own lives here, too. It's not the same as getting a group together in someone's dorm room or at Waffle House and shooting the shit all night, which is such a fun and quick way to bond, and the way my friends and I all grew up doing.

    And I think that changes "friendships" as we get older, because I don't think there's any way you can be as close to people if you're not all up in each other's business like we were in high school and college. It was out of necessity then, but that was OK. Out here in the world, it's a little harder to get close to people. And I don't know that that's a good thing.
     
  6. Rumpleforeskin

    Rumpleforeskin Active Member

    What do I do for fun?

    I enjoy life and I live it to the fullest I can every day. Every day I wake up, I know that I must have fun with it, because you know, it could be my last.

    I go to work and write like I haven't done a story before. I put my everything into a story just because, maybe, maybe, that one time, someone will read it and get an emotion out of it. Maybe it will be sadness, maybe it will be hatred, maybe it will be bliss, but whatever it is, I know that my words helped induce that emotion.

    I lift weights in the gym until my arms can't lift any more. Pumping iron is a release for me. There is no better feeling than putting up 270 pounds on the bench when a bunch of meatheads around you think you can't get it up. Yet, you push and push and push, and you get it up 10 times, drop the bar, and look them square in the eye.

    You get back down on your last set and you rep 290 until your arms can't go any longer. Yet, you get that last little bit of energy out of your soul and you press it up there to finish the set strong. You hear the clang of the weights on the metal and yes, you know that you gave it your all. You know that even though your pecs and arms feel like jelly, you are getting much more out of it than you put in.

    I enjoy to go out there and enjoy the nightlife. I like to go to different bars in my town and the city around my town and meet people. I like to hear stories. No matter who is telling them, no matter who is speaking, I like to learn about people. Maybe I don't agree with the person about their views, maybe I don't even care about the person, but I'll listen and learn to become a better human and a better man.

    I like to hang out with my girlfriend. There is no better feeling than just putting a day behind you and seeing their smiling face. You know, at that moment, everything else that went on in your day doesn't matter. You are happy to be in their presence and you are in THE MOMENT. You forget the past, don't care about the future and live for the present.

    I like to make friends. I like to go to the gym every day and talk to someone and work in with them. I like to push them to their brink and then talk about their lives. I like to go to the bar and just talk because I like to learn about people. I like to find someone around my age and just start a conversation. It doesn't matter what about, as long as I am talking to them. Silence is the worst thing and I like to hold a conversation. By the end of it, I hope to have a new friend and a new number in my address book, but if not, I consider it a learning experience.

    When it comes down to it, I just love to live life. Life is fun for me. It took a while for me to understand what life was all about, but I eventually I did. I want to live while I can, because before I know it, I will be an old man in a rocker, thinking about what I should have done. Who I should have met. How I should have lived.

    Living without regrets is my fun. Living like their is no tomorrow is my fun. Just living is my fun.
     
  7. Rex Harrison

    Rex Harrison Member

    I went through those times in my mid and late 20s, but I moved on. I'm in my early 30s, I'm thousands of miles from my family, and I have no friends. I have my wife and my dog. The people I knew in high school and college? I have no idea where they are. I didn't keep in touch with anybody from my final newspaper because I hated the place and didn't care for the people.

    I pass the time working, watching wrestling and cleaning the house. I'm from a warm climate, so I love to sit outside on my back porch, fire up the grill and play guitar while I watch the meat sizzle alongside the foil-wrapped corn. During the winter, snow is measured in feet around here, and I'm a miserable fucking asshole. I hate being cold. I started buying coloring books and crayons for the sheer hell of it, and it was so fucking relaxing to sit at the kitchen table, listen to music, and color a picture of Batman. And, there's always coming on here to spout nonsense or bitch about something.
     
  8. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Read.

    Throw the "ballie" or "fripsee" to the dogs. Well, to one. The other sits with me and supervises.

    Sudoku. That's fun. Kakuro is criminal.

    Watch the Nats, which I suspect will be more fun for the next generation that may see them turn into a winner.

    I have more time for fun things with the new gig. Still some weekend work and long, crazy days but they are much less frequent than in the old days. Hope to dust off my next book. And The Queen keeps reminding me how much fun I had when I tended a garden all spring-summer. So I may do that again this year.

    The friend pool keeps changing throughout life. College buds for a while, then you hang with the parents whose kids do the same things your kids do. Now, after a few years as empty nesters, the pool has shrunk but I suspect these are the people who will carry my casket when I die.
     
  9. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Probably spent 40 hours in the yard over the last 10 days -- planting sod, tilling two flower beds (not easy through clay), getting the tree, shrubs and flowers for it, getting landscape timbers, cutting and placing as borders -- one for the 4x4 in the yard and the other 4x24 on the side of the house (did I mention I spent two hours trying to cut a 4 inch by 20 foot trench to place a drainage pipe under the flower bed to move the water from the roof since we have no gutters)
    The queen reminds you how much fun you have; I'm called obsessive.
     
  10. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    I hate yardwork with a passion. I use a service for that now, one of the perks of old age.
    Growing vegetables, lots of them, is a different thing. That I enjoy.
    The rest of that shit is too much like work. I did the whole yard thing at the first house. My next house won't have a yard. I'll rent a garden plot.
     
  11. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    Something I wanted to point out from reading the posts on this thread is it is easier for someone who is married to move to a strange place far from friends as well. Because no matter how much you struggle to make new friends, you always have that friend at home - who, hopefully, is your best friend in the world.

    When I was married I had an easier time making friends as well, just because I didn't have to go do stuff by myself. Now, when I got divorced and am living 2,000 miles from home in a strange town, it became much harder to make friends. I just lucked out in having a ridiculously cool boss, though my girlfriend does like to point out the only friends I have are my boss and the people on SportsJournalists.com, but I digress.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  12. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    Damn. When you really set your mind to it, you can write gold, Mike.

    I suppose I have a different problem. I'm a bit of an introvert, but I think I'm more reserved than anything. I'm usually not the guy who will feel comfortable about initiating a hug or anything beyond that -- especially with guys. If you're the touchy-feely type, I'm not going to shy away from you by any means. But I'm not going to be the first one to walk up with arms outstretched for a hug.

    It's not that I can't make friends. I certainly have. And it's not that I can't get close to people. I have. And it's not just my sexuality that plays a role in that. When I started at my community college right after high school, it was the 10th different school I'd been to in my life. That included three different high schools, two of them during my senior year. Thus, I didn't get to walk with the class I felt was my real graduating class.

    In fact, I didn't even get to walk with most of the graduating class I'd joined in midstream. I had to wait until the summer and walk with a bunch of kids from other schools as well as my own. I guess it turned out for the best, though. The summer school counselors picked me to introduce the keynote speaker. That also meant I would be one of two students to lead the processional. I certainly made the best of my moment in the high school sun. But it came with a price.

    My life has become a pattern of meeting people, getting close to them and -- when circumstances happen -- losing touch. I can count the number of people I've stayed in steady contact with for more than five years on perhaps two hands. I see stories of people who've known each other since elementary school and it hurts. I see stories of people who have been in each other's lives and have grown as close as siblings and I'm jealous. Granted, I have some people in my life who are like siblings to me. But one of them I haven't talked to in a long time. Another lives in another part of the country.

    I guess I'm lucky in the sense that I've had people whom I've gotten close to pretty quickly. But I can't help wanting more sometimes.
     
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