I was in a gathering of football fans sometime last year when I overhead one of them saying that he was surprised that some people did not watch football. According to him, they are a very boring people.
So, I had to identify myself as somebody that did not watch football and demanded that he explain to me his definition of normalcy. I went back and forth with him as he could not justify his choice of words. I had to compel him to submission by making him to retract his ill-informed assertion. Non-football lovers are abnormal. This reminds of what TD Jakes said: “When you know who you are, then you know who you are not.”
In fact, I had to let him know that just as he thought that persons like me who did not watch football were not normal, even so did I think of persons like him too as they screamed, shout, jumped, starved themselves, stayed out late, denied loved ones time and attention, wasted money, argued unnecessarily, fought, missed church services, among other illogical acts, just because of some people they watched who knew next to nothing about them. So who is not normal?
Also, just lately, as a friend of mine was going to watch a football match, he asked if I would join him. I said no. I told him I did other things other than watching football. He just shook his head in disappointment and left the place. Pray, is watching football the only way to entertain oneself? How about reading novels, watching interesting movies or even listening to music?
It is sardonic how some people think. They want you to do what they do, forgetting that what appeals to them might not appeal to others. Some are just insensitive to the fact that we are wired differently and that is what makes us unique. If you are in that school of thought, please permit me to congratulate you on not being part of the football fans that were electrocuted to death or injured in Calabar, Cross River State, recently.
Note that just as you have every reason to do something, so others have every reason not to.
- Emmanuel Onoja
ramseyemmy@gmail.com
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