(no subject)
At a soccer game this evening, I once again noticed how frequently I get pissed off at something or other engaging in this activity which I ostensibly enjoy. And it is particularly strange given the low frequency with which I generally get angry and given that it is often over very minor stuff. To be fair, one of the things that frequently gets to me is people who play very aggressively, especially in a game which has pretty well being decided, and that distinctly graduated from peeve to hot button back when I broke my collar bone. But this game I found myself getting really pissed off about stuff that was clearly sportsmanship stuff. The best example was when a ball went out of bounds, and an sidelined opponent started to chase after it, turned and looked at the ref, saw that it was our throw and stopped and let the ball roll off. Now, sure it's kind of rude, but she's not required to chase after our balls. But I was pretty close to giving her a sarcastic "Hey, thanks" as I ran by her after it. The other notable example was getting irked about a guy trying to cheat a throw location by about 20 yards. The ref called him on it and moved him back most of the way. The thing that struck me though, was realizing that the same guy had in the past couple of minutes, volunteered that he had knocked a ball out and that the throw should be ours. So it seemed incongruous to now be seeing him trying to work every little angle of advantage.
I recall talking with Heather a while back about how different players respond to aggressive play. I tend to react with various displays of anger - "What the hell was that?!?" or "If you keep that bullshit up, one of us is going to get hurt, and I'll make damn sure it's not me." It's funny, put a pair of cleats on me, give me a shove and all of a sudden I think I'm some kind of badass. Heather opined that this sort of thing is only likely to encourage further thuggish play and that it would be better to calmly ask people to watch their arms and so forth. Also that Diane has had good luck in games that aren't close by going over at halftime and saying "Look, you guys aren't proving anything to anybody, do you think you could tone it down ." She's most likely right, and even just going on with the game is better than getting combative about it, even on just a verbal level.
Anyway, tonight I was thinking about why I might get angry so much more during soccer and realized the answer is fairly obvious - it's our good old friend the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion. Arousal, say from sprinting around the field, gets misattributed to another source - in this case being pissed off about what some opponent or another is doing. So, hopefully I can cut down on it quite a bit by keeping in mind that I'm not really mad or at least not *that* mad, just pumped. That and just suppressing comments and actions that continue the cycle - both confirming it in my own head and instigating response from others.
I recall talking with Heather a while back about how different players respond to aggressive play. I tend to react with various displays of anger - "What the hell was that?!?" or "If you keep that bullshit up, one of us is going to get hurt, and I'll make damn sure it's not me." It's funny, put a pair of cleats on me, give me a shove and all of a sudden I think I'm some kind of badass. Heather opined that this sort of thing is only likely to encourage further thuggish play and that it would be better to calmly ask people to watch their arms and so forth. Also that Diane has had good luck in games that aren't close by going over at halftime and saying "Look, you guys aren't proving anything to anybody, do you think you could tone it down ." She's most likely right, and even just going on with the game is better than getting combative about it, even on just a verbal level.
Anyway, tonight I was thinking about why I might get angry so much more during soccer and realized the answer is fairly obvious - it's our good old friend the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion. Arousal, say from sprinting around the field, gets misattributed to another source - in this case being pissed off about what some opponent or another is doing. So, hopefully I can cut down on it quite a bit by keeping in mind that I'm not really mad or at least not *that* mad, just pumped. That and just suppressing comments and actions that continue the cycle - both confirming it in my own head and instigating response from others.