I don’t like to be a cliché as far as my femininity is concerned, but I’m just not much of a football fan. I simply can’t understand the fascination with 22 farts running after a ball. Plus, I’m really tired of having the offside rule explained to me. I don’t think I will ever get it, no need to remind me of my own stupidity whenever a football game is coming up. I don’t like to be stupid, and that’s probably mostly why I don’t like football. So whenever my football-loving friends go out to watch a game, I’m doing my best to avoid their company.

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I wouldn’t say disliking football is a general problem, as I’m not the only human, and definitely not the only human trapped in a female body, that feels like this. During the Champions League, for example, I have plenty of fellow-sufferers out there that would rather spend the evening in a cinema watching an intellectually stimulating independent movie than get smashed observing a green field and two white gates in a sports bar. However, with the World Cup currently taking place, this problem of disliking football becomes a whole different ball game, as form some reason, suddenly the whole world turns crazy for football. Going out with friends, unless it’s for watching World Cup games, becomes impossible. People with an aversion to football are put into a socially forced solitary confinement for four long-lasting weeks (due to repeat every four years). And the only way to escape this state of isolation is to somehow develop affection towards the green field, the white goals or the 22 running farts.

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In saying that, on closer inspection one day, I found that these 22 running farts turned out to be well-trained, well-toned male beings and suddenly there was a part of football I quite liked. From then on, I focused on games that covered Chile, Sweden, Portugal or Spain, as these teams seem to feature the highest quantity players that suit my taste. It was only for about three games, however, that I managed to trick my mind and escape my social isolation and spend the night watching football with my friends without being bored to death. The fourth game caused that familiar feeling of boredom to creep back in, pretty much as soon as the players’ presentation during the national anthems was over. When I then saw that the second woman in this group of friends was yawning already, too, I decided that there had to be a solution to prevent us females from a month of loneliness in future four-years-intervals.

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Now here’s what I thought should change for football to cover the expectations of women: The players’ presentation should be held at the beginning and end of the game. TV cameras should stop focusing on the ball, and instead show close-ups of the best-looking players throughout the whole game, and as a result, cameras only need to cover goals if either the goalkeeper or the scorer belongs to the best-looking players. The part in which the two teams exchange their t-shirts should be repeated during the game every five minutes, at least. Oh, and offside, fouls or delay of the game (they need to take time to change their shirts, right?) should no longer be considered against the rules… Now this might be a lot to change, but not only would these new rules guarantee women will enjoy watching the sport more, but the inexistence of the offside rule would also make heated discussions about incompetent referees redundant…

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Now one should still claim that if women owned football, this world wouldn’t be a better world… Cheers to that, girls!

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Ela

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Time to revolutionize Football! Ela in the Bombay Beach Romper. (photo: Timo Jarvinen)

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It’s not that I don’t like kids. But they can be terribly annoying. Loud and hyperactive, for example. Cheeky and impertinent. Especially in public places such as stores or trains or tramways. Basically places in which you want to get from A to B the fastest possible without having your way made any longer by some yelling and jumping little scamp that most likely stinks of poop and has slaver on his shirt. As I said, it’s not that I don’t like kids. But they can be annoying to a point at which you wish to tell them that adults are taller and stronger for a reason…
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I mean I would never become violent against a kid, heaven forbid, but the other day I almost ended up yelling back at such a yelling and jumping little kind. He was in the kiosk where I was intensively scanning different magazines and was in urgent need of some quiet time. The kid was with his mom that had just refused to buy him an ice cream, which turned out to be a terrible mistake as the little rascal immediately started jumping and yelling as if he had just gotten into a training camp for fans of the World Cup in South Africa. And although I internally promised him that I would invest all my savings and bribe the FIFA so Switzerland would win (which I think was a very generous gesture considering I’m not even into soccer), he wouldn’t stop with his choruses. It took another apparent 15 minutes (in fact, it was probably not anymore than 3…) of premature World Cup celebrations until his mom finally gave in and let him grab the ice cream. Hallelujah!
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I know every kid has to go through the ice cream/mom fight. It’s probably part of our education such as brushing teeth. It helps us develop a personality, to be a man and such… I assume 3.5-year-olds have to scream explicitly for ice cream or any other imaginable candy every once in a while to train their vocal chords properly. I don’t doubt that. But is it really asked too much if I suggest these little scamps develop their vocals in the privacy of their parents’ home instead of living it out in public? I mean don’t they freaking have a sense of shame anyways?
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It was this question that made me eventually reconsider my aversion to 3.5-year-old monkeys. As much as I namely dislike their jumping and yelling in public, as much do I adore them for their capability to live exactly what they feel. How often would I want to jump and yell in stores myself to express my anger? Or how often would I like to start dancing on trains only to show how happy I am? Or sing loudly to my iPod or maybe hug a random person or cry just because I feel like it… In the end, however, it’s always my sense of shame that keeps me reserved in my expressions and all I have left to wish for is to be a little scamp myself again that jumps and yells in public and doesn’t care.
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I don’t know if the world would be a better place if we hadn’t our senses of shame, but I feel it might be more amusing. And only if it is for this fact, we should start being a little crazier about things – dance on trains, sing to iPods or scream whenever we feel like it. If my wallet turns out to contain not enough coins for this vanilla flavoured ice cream on a warm day this June, I will yell and jump as the little stinky scamp did until the lady in the kiosk gives it to me for free… Yup, I will!
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Ela wearing the Karma Pant, the academy tank, the arena vest and the kid in her… Scream for ice cream!
Photo : Timo Jarvinen

Ela wearing the Evershlott Tank and the Box Springs harem pant (photo: Timo Jarvinen)

I don’t know too much about the feelings of weekdays but did you ever ask yourself about Mondays’ emotional equilibrium? Only think of how many people curse them for their existence each time they pop up on the calendar. It must be at least two-thirds of the world population which currently amounts in about 4.5 billion human beings. What if Mondays can hear us curse them? How low could their self-esteem possibly be? I mean, 4.5 billions curses a week? Gosh! Mondays must be survivors… Don’t get me wrong. I don’t come to their defence. I’m a weekend person, and I certainly dislike Mondays for ending my most favourite time of the week. But at the same time, I have always had this soft spot for discriminated fringe groups, and this is why I recently started to worry about Mondays and wondered if there was anything at least slightly positive we could get out of them. They could simply not just be doomed to be cursed, right?

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It was during a chat with a friend when it became clear to me what positive side Mondays might come along with. My friend had just been dumped by his girlfriend for the umpteenth time and he yet again wanted her back. They lived one of these on-and-off-relationships that everyone in a circle of friends secretly wishes to be over. So when he told me over dinner that he and his ex-girl might get back together, I reacted with as much excitement as a sated dog would to the tofu steak on my plate. I advised my friend to give it more time, wait until he was able to see things more clearly for once, understand that their constant break-ups were probably for a reason and that they most likely didn’t belong together… I thought I sounded smart but what I said was obviously not what my friend wanted to hear. He looked at me completely devastated, called my advice ‘bullshit’, told me that he couldn’t stand this crap about time would heal wounds and that he no longer wanted to talk to me about this… Although I respected his wish and changed the subject, I couldn’t help being bothered by his harsh reaction. Was it possible that I (and everyone with mutual convictions) could just be wrong? Could time actually heal wounds or was it really just an awfully overrated verbal tranquillizer that only existed in the dreams of creators of painfully romantic Hollywood movies?

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Well, I reflected about this long and intensively and I have to stick to the ‘no’. There was this one thing life and especially being single had taught me and this was that the passage of time would make us see more clearly and make wounds eventually heal. I mean, how many times did I already purportedly have a crush on a guy knowing for sure this oh-so amazing person was my designated one? And how many times did these oh-so heart-breaking crushes turn out to be a total disaster, or – if only I let time pass by – mutate into something more serious no matter how hopeless they seemed in the beginning? Yes, wasn’t it only a few Mondays ago that a wound was still bleeding and today, some nth Monday later, not even its scar is  visible anymore? Time does heal wounds, and if for for nothing else, Mondays are here to remind us of this reliably and punctually every week again.

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Up from now, I hope to make some Mondays a little brighter with my new column ‘Mondays matter’ (each 1st Monday of the month) on blog.quiksilver-women.com. Let it remind you monthly that any unanswered crush, nasty break-up or any other conceivable affaire de coeur may come and go, but Mondays will stay.

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Because Mondays do matter!

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Ela

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No need to look back, another Monday will come eventually... (photo: Timo Jarvinen)