Picklebored

I liked playing pickleball. It made me sweat. I just didn’t like the competitiveness of it. Pickleball players are also snobby as fuck even within my own circle of friends.

I hadn’t played all winter because I was focusing on skiing and snowboarding. Now that the winter is over, I wanted to get back to playing pickleball. The guys I used to played with honed their skills everyday. They are now on a higher level. Whenever I played with them, they seemed to be forced. They didn’t want to put any efforts into it. They were stuck up and condescending. I stopped coming out.

Instead of helping beginners to improve, they looked down on them. I got bummed out and bored. Maybe Vietnamese people are just too damn competitive. They are not team players. Maybe I should join an American pickleball group to see if it is any difference. Or maybe I should refocus my energy on rollerblading and skateboarding. At the skatepark, people never looked down on beginners. In fact, they encouraged beginners.

The same sentiment goes for skiing and snowboarding. We also helped beginners to learn. When I first learned snowboarding, I was falling on the bunny slopes like crazy. I almost quit, but then a young snowboarder in his 20s came up to me and told me that I was doing great. He told me not to give up. Just his encouragement alone had kept me thriving. Now I even become a snowboard instructor.

Maybe I like sports in which I can progress on my own. From ice skating to rollerblading to skiing to snowboarding, these sports allow me to work on my skills. I don’t have to compete with anyone else. I just need to compete with myself. With pickleball, it is not easy to work on my own. I need 3 more players or at least another person to play against. Also playing for points changes the game. Instead of playing just for fun and to get some exercise, people get really competitive about it and we don’t even play for money or cups.

I am just going to stay out of pickleball.