Yeah, there are a few idiots who take things too seriously (there’s always a few…) but they’re in the minority and no one really likes them anyway.
The nice thing about kickball is that there isn’t a huge gap between the athletically gifted and the clumsy (the most devastating thing a team can have is girls who can catch pop flies). The ball is big and bouncy and doesn’t go very far very fast no matter how you throw it.
I tend to stay away from softball leagues and volleyball leagues since they tend to draw more ex-athletes looking to relive their glory days, who thus take things really seriously. Better to pick a game that doesn’t have an intercollegiate equivalent.
ElGuapo
2802
This place is a sliderulefest.
Shadarr
2803
How is playing a sport not a task-oriented activity? This isn’t speed dating or a single’s dance. While your ulterior motive may be to meet people and fill the empty void in your soul, there is also a task at hand: to run around and help your team win.
I used to play volleyball and it was a pretty good way to meet people. I just wasn’t single at the time so I didn’t try to pursue anything. And like Damien said, most of the girls who played volleyball were a little too serious. There were a few who were just there for fun in the bottom division, but a lot of them were more high strung than that.
Editer
2804
Am I the only one here who had no idea that there were people who played kickball after sixth grade?
Raife
2805
That’s because you’re like Jeff Green old, Denny.
WarrenM
2808
What the hell is going on in here? FFS, it’s a thread about internet dating. I don’t think anyone is coming into this thread to be persuaded to NOT try internet dating. Go somewhere else if you’re already scoring so awesomely with hot kickball girls. Guys try internet dating because they aren’t good in social situations. Is this hard to understand? And no matter how many times you tell them “It’s easy, just talk to her!”, they’re not going to magically gain confidence and start joining sports groups.
It’s high school all over. Go away, jocks (I use the term loosely because, seriously, kick ball?)
Apparently not - I knew that sometimes people would do things sort of in the neighborhood of that as one of those modern hipster things that will one day show up on Stuff White People Like if it hasn’t already, but not that it was, like, a thing. That lots of people did. And it’s even less excusable for me because it happens approximately a hundred and fifty miles from my current location. I think it’s excusable, though - I’m pretty sure smart people don’t go outside in Houston if they aren’t being chased by a wild animal. Even our freaking stadiums are air conditioned.
DrCrypt
2810
Guys using internet dating because they have poor social skills is hopefully one of the minority of reasons they’d try it: convenience and fast turn-around are higher. If you have bad social skills, meeting your date online isn’t going to change that… you’re still going to bone it all up, and badly, when you meet her, most likely.
Confidence is key, and the weird thing is, gaining confidence actually is a pretty magical process… but it takes work. I was pretty shy through my teen years, but when I began traveling, I had to quickly adapt to walking up to strangers across the room and initiating conversations with them. I make friends fairly easily now, and certainly don’t get nervous meeting new people… the exact opposite of what I used to be like. Likewise, I was shy and unsure of myself with women until I forced myself to put myself in positions where I was actually risking rejection, as opposed to doing everything to avoid it.
The bottom line is being a social mutant isn’t an excuse. Unless you’ve got a real medical affliction, It’s not how you are “naturally” any more than social butterflies are naturally social. It’s learned behavior, which means it’s correctible… but you have to risk rejection, and learn to get over it when you are rejected. If you’re not even willing to try, you’re going to live a pretty lonely life, social dating sites or not.
WarrenM
2811
Guys using internet dating because they have poor social skills is hopefully one of the minority of reasons they’d try it: convenience and fast turn-around are higher. If you have bad social skills, meeting your date online isn’t going to change that… you’re still going to bone it all up, and badly, when you meet her, most likely.
As I said earlier, I don’t believe that most guys using internet dating are cripplingly shy or something. They (myself included) need something to get them over that initial meeting step - once over, you’re fine because there’s no ice to be broken.
Suggesting that someone like myself go out and join a kick ball league to meet women is, in all honesty, dumb. If I could have done that (or even wanted to), I would have.
The thing is, for me, and I suspect for quite a few of us, it’s not that -socializing- is hard. It’s not. I can talk to people, strangers or not, girls or not, without too much trouble. But I have a hard time -initiating- socialization unless I already know someone fairly well. And there’s a -huge- shyness barrier against actually initiating romantic contact even with someone I already know well, much less complete strangers I think are cute. I don’t have nearly the degree of shyness online I do in real life, though, and if I meet someone on a dating site, I can establish mutual interest and knowledge for a bit and then even though I will still be hugely nervous on that first meeting (I was), it’s just a physiological reaction to tamp down as fast as possible. I’ve already established there’s a connection there, the only thing I might need to worry about is not meeting physical parameters she might have. It’s a lot less stressful.
Poor social skills is a pretty big net, though. I probably have Asperger’s, but I’m perfectly capable of functioning in a situation where I know what role I’m supposed to fill. For crying out loud, arguably the best extemporaneous speaker in the nation made it a point to go out of his way and make MY life that much more difficult by telling my old speech and debate coach in high school that he thought that I was better than him. I can speak to a room, and I’m damned good at it. I won’t walk up to a stranger because I haven’t been invited to and it just feels incredibly rude to me, and frankly I don’t WANT to learn to be what I assume will feel just like an asshole in the deep recesses of my mind. If a woman puts up a profile on an internet dating site, she wants me to come talk to her. It’s, like, in the Terms and Conditions or something. I have a clear, unambiguous open invitation, so I can start the conversation, and, even better, I can do it in a forum where I’m a little bit better at expressing myself, so, you know, triple bonus.
Now, it turns out that there’s not a whole hell of a lot of people that I get along with just right for all sorts of other reasons (if you expect me to constantly drive the conversation and make all the decisions - and you would be surprised how often this is the issue - I will probably get tired and quit after awhile), but I don’t think that it’s the internet’s fault. If anything, I make more friends now than I ever did in college because I can cast a wide enough net to find somebody who understands why Statler and Waldorf were in the damn balcony every damn night heckling the show (setting aside the sticks they had up their butts).
Aki
2814
If this is true, why would you ever want to inflict yourself on another human being? Or, for that matter, why would you ever want to inflict a romantic relationship upon yourself? You’ll do much better with a body pillow that’s been painted to look like an anime character.
I burned myself when I tried to install the heating element. Also, I thought I said that I DON’T like driving the conversation all the time - pillows are terrible at that, and if at any point they cease to be I shall have to consider institutionalizing myself.
Seriously, just because my brain isn’t quite right doesn’t mean that I never want to ever be around people ever. It just means I’m…a little weird. I still like being around people that I do not hate sometimes, I still enjoy physical contact when it’s not the stupidest proposition ever (it is three thousand degrees - no I do not want to cuddle), I would still kind of like to put my genitals to practical use, and I happen to think that I’m a pretty neat guy to know. Just because you’ve got some scrambled brains doesn’t mean you don’t ever get lonely or want a partner or desire romantic contact.
Speaking of poor social skills… that was really harsh, Ryan.
DrCrypt
2817
I definitely understand, but my experience tells me – as someone who ALSO used to have profound difficulties initiating socialization – that the only way to break yourself of that is to just take a big gulp, walk across a room and start talking. It’s hard! I know! But breaking yourself of it, in my experience, is about as easy as getting up the nerve to do it the first dozen times.
Honestly, I’m not offended - it’s a question I’ve asked myself, and I have to think about it reasonably, because I’m pretty damn sure that I CAN be kind of a burden. I know that I will have some uncomfortable things to deal with in a romantic situation. My romantic history indicates that I can probably accomplish that goal, and that my issues there don’t really relate to my issues with striking up conversation with random strangers. I don’t talk to strangers because I would feel like a jerk if I did. That problem becomes less pronounced once I put some liquor in me, but being diabetic means I can’t really do that so often.
Why?
“How did your team do tonight?” Seriously. It is JUST THAT EASY. And everyone’s wearing their team T-shirt, so it isn’t like you run the risk of talking to someone who just happened to come to the league bar.
I’m not down on internet dating; I’ve used it myself. But it’s just one tool in the toolbox. And here’s the thing: dating is inherently a social endeavor. You can’t hide behind your keyboard forever.
And what you seem to be missing is that the sports league thing (or similar endeavors) makes the confidence thing less of an issue, because you already are guaranteed to have at least one thing in common with whoever you’re talking to. It’s way easier than initiating a conversation with a random stranger at a bar.
Incidentally, I am TERRIFIED whenever I initiate conversation with a cute girl I don’t know. Courage isn’t doing what’s easy – it’s doing what needs to be done even when it scares you. And the odd thing is, even when I don’t get anywhere, it’s never as bad as it was in my mind.
There are at least 2 leagues in Houston. And my parents and sister, who live there, would beg to differ about never going outside. Where are you, anyway?
Incidentally, WAKA (World Adult Kickball Association…yes, it sounds like someting Fozzie Bear says) started around 15 years ago in Washington, DC by two guys who wanted a way to meet girls and an excuse to drink beer. So yeah, it’s built for meeting the opposite sex by design.
