My mother likes to tell a story about my first diagnosed pathology of the competitive spirit. I must have been no more than 10, and playing in a regular chess league whose influence upon my present-day ability manifests itself only in my tendency to lose to anyone over the age of 11.
My losses used to make me so angry, and ruin my mother’s Saturday afternoons with such Helvetic regularity, that she suggested I not care so much about winning. As a result, I would come home every week cheerfully aglow with the stories of my latest suicidal manoeuvrings. Queens were sent to stumble pointlessly about the battlefield, bishops preached creeds of pacifism, kings walked straight into the line of fire or else intentionally knocked themselves over.
I don’t know why I did this. Why I willfully misinterpreted her advice in a way that contributed only to my further unpopularity and her continued annoyance. I know I didn’t actually mean it. It was mostly for show. A form of two-dimensional warfare governed by the only rule I knew: if I could not win, I would at least become the world’s most accommodating loser.
To this day, I think, though I care passionately about victory, I do a good line in socially considerate defeat. My contacts list sloshes over with tennis players who cannot wait to wipe the floor with me again, so willingly do I throw myself into those hard-to-reach corners and spray myself with lemon-scented Cif.
I never yell or cry or throw my racket against the floor, never argue a line call or ask for a mulligan. I even deploy insider information to give my opponent the edge, calling shots out based purely on how certain I am of their doomed trajectories. My self-esteem is one long red carpet just aching to be walked over. Who are my opponents wearing, you might ask? Me.
Throughout all these humiliating procedures, my competitive spirit remains very much awake. I still hate the losing and I hate the winners for their victory. If there are any songs I can draw on from my back catalogue to claim even a single extra point then believe me, I will play them ragged. But what I refuse to do is abandon my carefully cultivated mask of emotional sterility.
And this brings me to last week’s volleyballing jamboree. Because, against all odds, and while playing a team whose highlights reel I’m convinced I recently saw on EuroSport, we won.
Some of the points necessary to reach the statutory total were even won by me. Not in a well-done-team-this-point-is-everyone’s kind of way, but in a ha-I-was-taller-than-you-and-so-though-we-both-jumped-for-it-at-the-net-I-got-there-first-and-spiked-it-out-of-reach-or-if-not-out-of-reach-then-at-least-far-enough-away-for-you-to-be-unable-to-hit-it-over-the-net kind of way.
To a man raised on an almost exclusive diet of failure, this was rich meat. Not wishing to make the reigning Commonwealth champions on the other side of the net feel any worse about their loss, I opted against any excessive displays of self-congratulation. Instead, any time an intervention of mine saw our score tick over to the next consecutive positive integer, I lowered my gaze in a gentlemanly manner and modestly resumed my assigned position on court.
It was not until we were on our way home that number 6, with whom I maintain a relationship as cordial off the court as on, told me this made me look like an arrogant git. “You have to celebrate,” she said. “Otherwise it makes you look bored by the whole thing. Like you’re too cool for it.”
The thought that I might look too cool for anything, with the possible exception of air-conditioning, had never crossed my mind. But I began, slowly, to see her point. If you are going to suffer at somebody else’s expense, the least they can do is look happy about it. Otherwise, why bother suffering at all?
With our first match of the new season fast approaching, I cannot wait to put her advice into practice. Most of this past week has been spent in front of the mirror, clenching fists, raising arms, sinking to my knees – sometimes all at the same time. I have particularly high hopes for a sort of dabbing number performed as an upper-body floss. Let me tell you, any eleven-year-olds on the other side of the net will be well impressed.
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