I Don't Know There's Something Else, I Wanna Drum It All Away, Oh, I Said I Don't, I Don't Know Whether I'm A Boxer Or The Bag

--"Yellow Ledbetter", Pearl Jam

I'm losing my fantasy baseball league.

It's bad enough that I'm the commissioner of the Game of Thrones Fantasy League who's floundering horribly, but to compound that is the fact that this is the first year Breanne and I have been able to start in a league together. I don't know--when I was winning last year it was a lot easier for me. I'd drafted well, made some good trades, and had done a lot of research to scout out some of the better waiver wire pick-ups. Back then, when she had taken over for a no-show owner, Breanne was the one who had been complaining about how her team stank and how she wasn't enjoying herself. Now I'm finding our roles reversed and that, basically, I make for a very discontent sore loser.

I mean--I'm not scraping down the walls or threatening suicide or anything, but when I was the one being reassuring to her last year that things would turn around, she took the encouragement a lot better than I am. Me? Everything out of her mouth or in her texts just comes off as pity and as her feeling sorry for me. And I can't have that. I'm the one who is supposed to know how to play these things. I'm the one who has two or three years more experience on her in playing fantasy baseball. I'm not supposed to stink.

More importantly, she's not supposed to be doing better than me.

----

I've written before how with Jina it became apparent that she was more intelligent than I was (still is). She was also telling me about all these great accomplishments and great opportunities she was being presented. At first, it was easy to be awed and amazed. She was a lot younger than me and having a friend that was advanced for her age was kind of interesting. My feeling was that we always met intellectually or interest-wise somewhere in the middle. It was nice hearing about how a normal childhood actually plays out from her and I believe she was seeking individuals who could discourse on meatier topics than her immediate circle was capable of. The problem came when I started to realize she was destined to become more distinguished than I would ever be. I wasn't sure at first, but with every passing year it became clearer that, not only was she going to pass me, she was probably going to lap me. I wrote about how she was the first person to make me realize that I have this insane jealousy for people I know who turn out to be better at displays of intelligence or creativity. She had me beat on both.

I consider myself smart.

Jina's a genius.

And that would normally be okay, but it's the one area I get protective of. I can't hang out with people who I perceive to be smarter than me. I feel displaced. If I'm not the smart one of the group, then what's my role? People can be more attractive than me (people usually are). People can be more charming than I am (it happens all the time). And I don't care if someone's funnier than myself (I have a very peculiar corny sense of humor). But when I'm engaged in a conversation with a group who outclass me in terms of what they bring to the table academically, I get intimidated. Brandy tells me that that's probably the reason why my circle of friends tends to be younger than myself; it gives me the edge of superiority that I need in my relationships. It doesn't even have to be true that I have a higher aptitude for a particular skill having to do with intelligence or creativity or that I have a higher I.Q. than someone, as long as I think I'm smarter than someone.

It can be anything that gives me that sense of validation. It can be something as simple as asking me how to spell a particular word. It can be asking me a question of what date such-and-such happened. It can be something as stupid as knowing which actor played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I don't really care. As long as there is that need to come to me for some type of answers, I feel I have value in a relationship or friendship. I'm the person you come to when you need to know something, for advice or for information. That's my job. That's what I do.

I'm not the person you go to when you need to impress someone. I'm not the person you go to when you need someone to be the center of attention. I'm not the person who facilitates things or leads groups. I'm a much better advisor than person in charge.

And when I lose that capacity, I lose a bit of a sense of self. I become dejected and irritable. In short, I kind of sulk.

That's what I'm doing with this fantasy baseball thing. All I'm thinking about is how I have to look forward to another six months of losing. Contrary to popular belief, that's not fun for me. Yet, as someone quite important to me reminded me today, the whole purpose I started this league this year was so she and I could have something to do together. I had told her that, win or lose, it was going to be a good season because she would be someone I know in that league. Not only that, it'd be nice to test my baseball mettle against hers again. We've been doing that for over a decade now. It's high time we put in the public forum of a league where everyone can see who's better at cobbling together a team.

Well, it turns out, for this year at least, she is.

I'm doing my best not to feel like shit over that fact. I'm also doing my best not to blame her for that, but it's difficult. What I'm also finding difficult is not to break down and lean on the old best friends angle. I so want to just prey upon her willingness to bail me out, even though that would mean ruining her team. It's so hard to not want to say to her that she should trade me some of her more decent players so we could be more evenly matched.

But that's not the spirit of the game. She drafted a better team than I did. She knows the players better than I do. She's probably going to finish in a much better position than I am.

I have to live with that idea. I have to do my best to be proud of that fact as well. I mean--if I can't win, shouldn't I be glad that she might? Isn't that the notion behind being there for a person? I've just never been good at losing gracefully at a competition I thought I stood a decent chance of winning. Especially to close friends. Especially to her.

That either makes me another hyper-competitive male or the worst friend on Earth. Or maybe a bit of both.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers