The Classless, The Graceless, The Proud

Destroying Social Grace


Losing bites. There is no other way to say it; we've all felt the pain of losing...and sports is hardly the only venue in which losses occur. It's just that sports losses seem all that more important (thought they aren't). These losses are particularly painful when the winner stands over us, jeering our misery. You know you've been there.
Fortunately, most of this kind of activity centers on sporting events. I can hardly imagine a situation in which the person who got the award/job/significant other that I (my children or someone else special to me) wanted would stand there and scream, "In your face, loser!" but this is what happens at almost every sporting event I have attended.
This past weekend I happened to experience this first-hand at a college basketball game when two "fans" of the other team loudly proclaimed the idiocy of the referees, the lameness of the home crowd, the paucity of the student section numbers, the lack of physical beauty and grace of the dance team and the lack of knowledge on the part of the local fans. It was all I could do to refrain from committing some regrettable act (in the form of witty repartee, of course) since that would only exacerbate the situation.
Then the Super Bowl arrives amid must fanfare (are the Patriots REALLY pro football's version of Duke?). Following the game, "fans" again took great pleasure in harassing Gisele Bundchen concerning her husband's loss and the vast superiority of the Giants' quarterback. Really? Winning wasn't enough? You had to attempt to humiliate the wife of a player? This is totally lacking in class, but then, people tend to think that a) paying to get in allows ANY kind of aberrant behavior and b) they actually profit somehow from "their" team's win.
All in all, it is undeniable that we have become an uncivil society (and that's not even getting into the political cesspool). It would serve us right if late December was the end of the line.