I was not a Jock, what were you

I can relate very much to your story. Well I wasnt a jock but the gist I get. For me I wound up "getting along" the way I was supposed to. If that makes any sense. My life has always felt like something was always wrong .. always wrong with me and everyone around me, but mostly me.

 

yes i can, i was a nerd. but i did find one sport i was good at, better than all the jocks and "cool" kids. Precision shooting, i competed in Dominion of Canada Rifle association competitions and placed number 1 in my province and 3rd in Canada. i've been a life long shooter ever since. teaching my son how to as well, he's got the potential to out shoot me. as to the girl/boy attraction, coming out could get you face down in a ditch. i really wanted to date, etc a girl but looking back there was feeling for guys too, just really pushed down deep.

 

Hi marriedover

Hmm reminds me of my high school years. Some of the meaner guys would sometimes intentionally kick the football hard into my body, once it even knocked off my specs. The last day of high school - when I realized I would never have to attend another day of high school ever again tfg (in this current lifetime, anyway) - I felt this incredible sense of relief. What a rotten six long years of either bullying or social exclusion I endured. Once I got to Uni, that all changed of course. What a difference! I can certainly relate to what you say.

 

looking don't always equal finding, but the search is sometimes the destination. water skiing, something i always admired for the balance, and strength it must take. i can't swim and frankly i am afraid of deep water. kinda funny for a guy who joined the Navy.

 

yeah kinda funny. speaking of which time to hit the rack.

 

I wrote the same story about myself. You want to be "that guy" but you aren't built like him even if you work out with weights, you don't look like him, and you can't play sports like him. What is harder to comprehend is that you also want to be with him on an equal physical footing, not just be like him, but that just isn't what happened in the 1970s, so thinking like that is not on your radar, or gaydar, as a possibility. You go do what people do, while the world around you gradually changes to make such relationships possible, then you feel like you missed the boat because you were born a few decades too early for your life to make sense for who you are, because you didn't know who you were at the right time. Your story is my story, and the story of a lot of other older guys here.

 

I was, am, and will always be a nerd :3

 

Same story here, and same time period (graduated from high school in 1979). In my high school, gym class was an elective after sophomore year, and I can guarantee you that I counted down the days until I was a junior and would be free of it. Middle school was actually far worse. The bullying and insults that I endured in gym and everywhere else were bad enough that I begged my parents to send me to the Catholic high school a half hour away. Thank God they recognized how miserable I was, and Dad actually picked up a part time job to help fund it.

I think high school was less horrific because we were ALL new, as opposed to middle school, where we had all known each other for years because it was a small town, and there was a well-established pecking order. And the high school gym teacher was a very blunt, kind of grungy no-nonsense guy who graded on effort, and as long as you appeared to be trying your damnedest to climb the rope or hit the ball, he didn't give a crap if you actually did it, and he expected the class to behave the same. The class actually cheered for me sophomore year when I finally actually managed to swing on the parallel bars or do a pull-up or whatever the hell it was. (Although it certainly didn't make me willing to re-enlist for junior year!)

I finally discovered choir and theater and found a spot to fit in, more or less, although I was a little too reserved to fit in perfectly with the more flamboyant theater crowd. Ended up with a lead in the musical my senior year, and had several jocks comment with great astonishment that they never imagined I had the guts or talent to do that. Getting a compliment from a jock, even if it was for my singing, felt like winning the lottery. Not that it was anyone I was crushing on, but it felt like such a victory to get any kind of positive feedback from one of "them", after being picked last or criticized for years.

 

I was definitely not a jock. I was terrible at anything that required coordination. I dreaded having to play basketball in gym class b/c I just didn't 'get it'. I was so bad that my classmates would laugh at me. Honestly, I think I was most awkward at the 12-14-year-old stage because I was in the midst of puberty... I had strong homosexual urges and I wasn't very good about covering them up. At the same time, I didn't identify in the least with the super-flamboyant guys in my class that probably came out in high school or shortly after. I didn't want to be gay and I didn't fit in with the 'gay guys'; subconsciously or consciously I started to act more straight. I ran cross-country and track- I was never very good but was good enough... I was more of the extroverted overachieving nerd... newspaper editor, student government extraordinaire, etc. I had a lot of friends (who I haven't kept in touch with at all) and found the niche that was right for me, given the time and place. I think being outgoing kept me from getting bullied much at all, fortunately, but the jocks always scared me a little bit. I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I was in high school today where it's less taboo to be homosexual.... maybe?

 

I hear you. Went to a small private school here and had a class full of jerks that called me "gay", but it was mainly a pecking order thing. I actually played baseball and took stats for the basketball team. I liked it, but I was somewhere between nerd and jock I guess.

 

Certainly no jock here, not now, not ever. For a while I tried to be when I convinced my dad to allow me to play Lacrosse. That was a miserable experience as it was nothing but a summer of bullying and torment. Never again have I willingly played any kind of organized sport.

I was lucky in highschool that we had a gym class that was oriented toward providing an exposure to more solitary type sports, for example martial arts, billiards, orienteering, bowling, etc. That was my only gym class during highschool.

Now I am in the Canadian Army and my regiment does a sports afternoon every week for PT, and I still do my absolute level best to get out of it by any means possible....I would rather go for a ruck march or run 10km than play floor hockey, soccer, basketball, football...etc...

 

I was the typical late 80s early 90s nerd. Yeah, you know the ones..

Oddly enough I was never tortured by the jocks. Mostly because I save a few to their senior project papers in the computer lab (remember those, I was that student that hung out there and helped people). I think maybe being helpful enough kept me out of harms way. I was nerdy enough to fly under the radar, but no so much so that I ended up being picked on. Plus, by HS, I knew most of the top 5% smartest kids as my friends.

I did however attend scouts.. A few of the football players went too and that might have had something to do with it. But I got my exercise there and learned how to participate in male groups that way instead. It can be torture at times growing up trying to figure out where you fit in..

 

I, too, dreaded/hated gym classes in middle and high school — no coordination, confidence, nor athletic talent. I tried baseball once in middle school because I felt the pressure to participate in a sport and "fit in," but it was just awful.

Sports and I definitely don't get along, especially any hyper-competitive team sports where the jocks are just trying to outdo each other at the expense of everyone else.

When I moved out West after college days, I discovered hiking. I finally found a physical activity that I didn't loathe. No competition, no peer pressure, just the wide-open spaces to explore as I wish.

It's disturbing how much lasting damage PE classes at school have done to those who don't fit in. I still have many painful memories and emotional scars from those classes, but I'm glad that I've been able to find other satisfying physical activities.

I guess I'm a "hiking jock" now... :icon_wink

 

Yes, i can relate atleast to the loneliness and fear plus, i have alot of girl-friends but not many guy friends, sad that you had to go through that dude:icon_sad:

 

When I was able to stay in high school, I never really had a clique. I was just always myself. I suppose I could be described as the loner, what, with the black trenchcoat and violent t-shirts. I was able to get along with most everyone, when necessary, with one exception: "preps". They were very difficult to get along with, as a whole, but individually or in a very, very small group, they were accepting enough.

If I have to pick something, then the closest would either be the "freaks" (Goths, punks, etc) or the "hustlers" (pretty much, the tough guys, the dealers, etc), because the first was willing to accept anyone, while the second, I was making profits with.

I wasn't really wanting to be a jock. I already had a decent enough reputation, and I didn't have to impress anybody to keep it.

 

wow that kinda makes me feel bad for the people who had to go through the bullying and harrasment, but atleast you survived and can have some small measure of hope that the newer generation would NOT be treated this way