Every man should have a passion—some real, manly hobby. Sure, you can happily collect stamps or breed violets, Pekingese, or guppies, but sooner or later, almost every man empirically realizes he needs to do something serious in his spare time—say, sports.
There are two ways to be passionate about sports: watching it on TV (being a regular subscriber to the Sport Express newspaper, sponsoring the women's field hockey team, or increasing bookmaker profits), or gathering a crowd of fellow sports enthusiasts every weekend and spending a long time at the bar showing off your newly purchased boxing gloves over a glass of beer.
Let's leave aside the observers for now: their way of engaging in sports has very little to do with it. Let's focus on the insiders—those who, considering sports a hobby, still occasionally go out to kick a ball around with the guys on Sundays, considering this physical activity sufficient justification for a nightly bottle of beer.
Speaking of football , the upsides of playing soccer in the yard are that, firstly, every family has old sneakers, the notorious sweatpants stretched out at the knees, and a T-shirt won during the “Slavutich” campaign. You can always snatch a ball from the kids in the yard. The downsides: it's still a team game, and you can't get by with just one partner, or even an odd number of players. And the seasonality is a drawback. Although in winter, you can switch to hockey or downhill sledding.
But if team sports aren't your thing, there's always a hobby for the more individualistic. Take motorcycling , for example. A beautiful, powerful car with bright decals, helmets emblazoned with flames and skulls , suits with padded shoulders that make even 50-pound wimps look like real men—the list of advantages is endless.
But! There's one major downside to motorsports (aside from, of course, the crazy financial investment and the risk of crashing while turning across a double solid line): one day, it might happen that your best friend, with whom you share a common interest (motorcycles, for example), beats you by half a second during the qualifying round on the track! The only way to get through this is with the help of a therapist, so it's essential to bring one along as part of your support group—this includes, of course, a mechanic, a massage therapist, your girlfriend, and your best friend, who will actively cheer you on, worry about you, tell you how to ride, and then bring you oranges at the hospital.
So wouldn't it be better to just take up golf , for example? All you need to spend is a set of clubs, a cap, white golf shoes, and a plaid vest. But you'll be surrounded by beautiful green lawns, fresh air, and elderly millionaires, making you look quite impressive. You'll also have the unique opportunity to ride in a bushmobile without provoking hysterical laughter. Injuries in golf are extremely low, and the competitive spirit is usually met outside the golf club. Moreover, the game's purpose is quite simple, and hitting the target is generally a man's prerogative.
If even a more sedate sport like golf doesn't suit you, you could choose the true essence of individualism as a sporting hobby: fishing . Why fishing is called a sport, I honestly can't say, but there are persistent rumors that they want to include it in the Olympic program.
So, what are the advantages of fishing over all other sports? Firstly, you can do it completely alone. Your success in this field depends solely on your imagination, your boldness, and the length of your arm swing. True, some advocates of an honest approach to evaluating results photograph their catches and then, based on a comparative analysis, determine whose fish was the bigger.
But the fact is, the wonders of modern technology, like Photoshop, allow you not only to slightly tweak the results but also to completely falsify them. So you won't even have to wake up at three in the morning, drive to some foggy remote place, and spend hours feeding mosquitoes: even if you can barely tell a bream from a tench, you'll always have the opportunity to satisfy your ambitions on various fishing forums! And if your loved ones still demand tangible proof of your passion, don't forget that the country's markets offer a wide variety of fish—fresh, cleaned, and gutted.
To summarize, I recommend immediately analyzing which sport makes your heart beat faster at the mention of it, and making a choice as soon as possible. Then you'll have a perfectly reasonable reason to get out of the house on Sundays and have a drink with friends, not just for fun, but in the context of your favorite sport.
