During this period of the year, in which my team (which I shall introduce to you in a post in the near future, I hope) usually lays the foundation for another unsuccessful season-finale, I find myself on the wrong side of a Psychology 101 book. In front of it, pretending to study, whilst actually checking the scores of whatever obscure football league I haven’t checked the scores of yet. All this in an attempt to do anything else but read how the author of the book barges through open doors – and subsequently deny he did - as if his life depended on it. So I made the mistake everyone makes when they just can’t plow through their mandatory material; I started attending the actual lectures.
This particular psychology crash course for people who care as much about psychology as psychology students would care about a class on
- “Lazy students”, I heard someone yell out as I entered.
- “Speak of the devil”.
Laughter.
As I settled down and took out the note book, which would be exclusively used for battling my neighbor in a thrilling series of tic-tac-toe (start in the bottom left, hope he is too confused to put one in the center, and finish him off. Look smug and victorious), I realized that the example of the lazy student had been an addition to a list that continued to grow as suggestions arose from the crowd. I knew it was going to come. It always does.
- “Moroccans!”
Wait for it.
- “Ex-convicts!”
Wait for it.
It took longer than it usually does. But when it came, which of course it did, it was met by a noise of almost universal agreement. The diminutive four-eyed brunette who had suggested it had even managed enough courage, probably for the first time in her life, to stand up and distinguish herself from those around her. This Spartacus-like gesture, intended to drive her point even further home, hadn’t been necessary. The buzz created by this sense of patting one another on the back in an understanding of common superiority was accompanied by the smuggest of smiles on the face of the forty year old lecturer. I knew it. It only made an appearance when he was utterly delighted with either himself or one of his students. Although most of the time he only humored himself enough to justify this specific smile, this was a case of the latter. On the blackboard behind him, “Football fans” was about to join “Moroccans” and “Students” as groups against which considerable stereotyping took place. However, unlike in the case of both “Moroccans” and “Students”, it was not deemed necessary to mention the fact that stereotypes are not an inherently negative phenomenon. Sure, there are also plenty of well behaving Moroccans and industrious students. But football fans? Violent dim-wits, the bunch of them. No further explanation necessary.
As might not be completely evident by the fact that I came in rather late, and also by the fact that I did not bother to stay during or after the interval, I did not particularly care for this course. But as I left the room only twenty minutes after I had entered, I was drawn towards the blackboard. “People with accents”. Well, yes, that would be me (I recently discovered it was far more noticeable than I had previously thought). Probably suggested by that redhead girl in the back with the retarded-sounding Twents accent. “Foreigners”. No. “Students”, “Youths”, “Drug-users” (user sounds so much graver than it should, don’t you think?). All groups I either am or could consider myself to be a part off. I have never been to prison, nor am I Moroccan, so those two were out. But all of the others were comfortable fits, too, and they didn’t offend me at all.
So why the sudden queasy feeling? After a few years of university, I know exactly two people by name. That means if there had been a hundred people in the room, I would not have cared for 97 of those. And while this may also prove that I have, quite possibly, the poorest social skills of anyone in that room, it also proves it does not generally matter to me what people think. So why, if one of these people felt the need to look down on football fans, even though she will be dressed up completely in orange when the next European Cup comes around, would I possibly feel offended? It had never mattered what anyone I did not care about had thought of me. But I did not even know, let alone cared about, the girl who had reaped such general approval while twisting the social dagger that is stuck in my side. But it had hurt like hell. Again.
Later that night I forced myself not to watch German Cup Football. In order to convey the exact magnitude of that sacrifice, in posts to follow, I shall provide you with an insight to whatever matters to me in the world of football (and you’ll hopefully conclude missing a German Cup game between a first division team and a third division team isn’t actually that much of a deal to me, but turning it off still felt like a great step in the direction of complete social rehabilitation – which writing this blog has already negated).
1 comment:
This is my favorite, by the way. My mind races with the possibility of more posts being added with the tag "diminutive four-eyed brunettes".
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