Like a lot of men, I have gone through several stages of friendship over the course of my life.
As a youth, I made deep connections with pretty much anything – superheroes, lab rats, garlic salt. It didn’t matter. In adolescence, my tastes became more discerning and I spent a lot more time with actual people – or “friends” as they’re sometimes called. I sought out like minded people with common interests, mixing and matching, clinging to some, discarding others. By the time I had reached my thirties, I had a very solid, dependable collection of friends, all reflecting different sides of my personality and interests.
One of these interests is basketball. I have always had friends that watched, talked about and, most crucially, played basketball.
In my basketball life, I have taken my ball to a park or gym and played with whoever happened to be there. If you love basketball, playing with strangers who may or may not turn out to be homicidal maniacs is part of the culture. This is especially true when you move to a new place where you don’t know anyone.
But for me, the most rewarding basketball experience has been playing with friends, especially as I’ve gotten older and have less time and patience for PPLR (Public Park Lunatic Roulette) or an OGJC (Open Gym Jerkbag Crapshoot).
But as I get older, the simple prospect of “playing with friends” gets increasingly difficult.
The writer's basketball team - he is the old, slow bearded guy second from the right. Source: Nick Bhasin
First of all, even just playing basketball became a challenge when I hit 35 and my body suddenly started to deteriorate. Without warning, I would get pains in my body where there had previously been no pains. Not from injury or anything. Things just started to hurt. I didn’t even have to be playing basketball. I’d be bending over to tie my shoes and a shooting pain would go up my back. A hamstring would seize up stepping out of the shower. Picking up a pen would trigger a sharp pain at the bottom of my foot. It’s endless.
The friends aspect became even trickier. It’s common knowledge that people don’t make friends in their thirties. It is . They’ve made the friends they’re going to and they just don’t have the energy to make new ones, especially if they have families. And men suffer the most because they .
Even as a man, just thinking about becoming friends with a man is repulsive. Who wants to spend time with a man? I mean, look at us. Gross. No thanks.
This might literally be what people are thinking in the UK, where a 2015 revealed that approximately 2.5 million men had zero friends. Zero! Given Brexit and whathaveyou, I can’t imagine that number has gotten better in the last two years.
If not for basketball, I could very easily be one of these friendless men.
In my thirties, I moved to Australia and started a family. (Do you know what an anchor baby is? Ha ha just kidding. Sort of. Ha ha just kidding. Maybe.) The energy of being in a new place propelled me to meet people and put in the work required to start and build a friendship. I picked up a few friends here and there, but when the kids started to arrive, my productivity fell right off a cliff. I no longer had the energy to make phone calls, respond to emails and I certainly wasn’t going to be jumping on FaceTime or Skype.
It’s common knowledge that people don’t make friends in their thirties. It is hard goddamn work.
Now that I’m in my 40s, I have almost completely receded from society. All communication has been flagged for follow up. Invitations to events are met with dread and the anticipation of regret. A phone call is so foreign and unwelcome, it might as well be a home intruder knocking down the front door. Between the children and my lady friend, I just don’t have time for people that aren’t me. As Keats once said, Daddy needs his Daddy Time.
What I do always have time for is basketball.
For the last decade, I have been fortunate to play with roughly the same group of people on a team that competes in a Thursday night league.
We’ve won a lot of games and lost a lot of games and even tied in some games, which is part of some socialist nanny state nightmare that I’ll never understand. We’ve yelled at each other and one arm man bro hugged it out later. We’ve talked our fair share of trash and been on the receiving end of some humiliating blowouts.
I have been bailed out by teammates after running my mouth in ways that would be totally unacceptable and possibly get me arrested if they took place off the basketball court. I, an apparently grown adult, have thrown a ball at the chest of an opposing player and asked him what he was planning to do about it. I’ve asked a referee, after a questionable call, what kind of a man he thought he was. I’ve been so aggrieved by a foul call that I’ve unironically howled at the ceiling, Russell Crowe in Gladiator style, “Are we children?! Are we not men?!”
And win or lose (or tie… gross), after the game, we head directly across the road to the pub. This post-basketball socialisation has become as important as the basketball itself. We go over strategy, discuss the professional game and, occasionally when pressed, talk about our personal feelings on a non-basketball related topic. By now, interactions with this group are effortless. Would we be friends if we didn’t have basketball in common? Maybe some of us, but it certainly wouldn’t be the same. There’s something about being on a team with people you enjoy playing with that heightens a relationship.
I look forward to Thursday basketball like few things in life. Along with the potential for a bout of heroic athleticism (emphasis definitely not on the athleticism – I am old and slow and can't jump over a phone book, as they say), Thursday is a guaranteed night out.
This is a cool shot of the writer (on the left with the cool armbands) and his team as they prepare to play well below the rim. (Credit: Lee Tolley) Source: Lee Tolley
It’s all the socialising I need. All I can handle, really. And if I didn’t have it, I’d be sitting at home, avoiding human interaction. I don’t even think I’m that big a misanthrope. But I could see myself easily going months, maybe years without seeing anyone if it were left up to me. It’s embarrassing how much of a cliché this kind of man-behaviour is. But the idea of not spending time with people is extremely appealing to me at this point in life.
Of course, there will come a time when this team won’t be together. Will we stay in touch? Given the limitations of male behaviour, it will be difficult. Like Matt Damon at the end of a Jason Bourne movie, we’ll all probably disappear.
Until then, I can not wait for Thursday.
If you want to watch basketball played at a much higher level than I play it, watch the National Basketball League on Saturdays at 5.30pm (AEDT) on SBS VICELAND and Sundays at 3pm (AEDT) on SBS, with live streaming and catch up via SBS On Demand.
