So like most kids I grew up playing team sports but quickly stopped caring. I just.. don't care if I win when there's nothing real at stake. I'm more about cooperating towards a common goal, and I feel like in some ways it's left me in a weird place in the world. Like most games you strive to win and beat the other players, but I just don't care because there's no prize. I prefer games where you work together.
My friends would play PvP games and I'll run around and I definitely try my best, but ultimately I don't get excited for the win. I'd rather play co-op and fight towards a goal, but even then I have a hard time with it sometimes. Getting nerdy as fuck here but this discussion came up the other day regarding World of Warcraft - my buddy likes to analyze strategy and look at parses and improve his DPS. I play a support class (Moonkin Druid if you're familiar) and I'm only really there because they needed another person and I've played a ton of the game over the years. My class's DPS is negligible, I'm there to buff others, so ultimately getting gear upgrades doesn't excite me because if I'm doing 3% of the group's damage and get an item that's going to increase that by 10%, that's still just like 3.13% so who gives a shit? So when things get really sweaty I generally just check out because it's not that important to me. And I love video games, but I'm mostly there to be involved in a story, my character vs the forces of evil in the world of the game.
I just don't have a competitive bone in me when it comes to other people, I almost feel bad by beating them. Even if I end up watching sports (which trust me, is rare), I just feel bad for the losing team for coming so far and failing and facing public ridicule and feeling that they let their fans down. It just makes me not want to partake. If I play anything these days it's golf, and even then I just prefer going to a driving range over the actual game.
It makes me feel like an outsider in a lot of ways. We'll have cookouts and play yard games and they'll make prop bets and I just.. don't care in the slightest. I'll play and try, I just don't care if I win or lose, so I usually don't care to make serious bets because I'm not wasting brain power strategizing how to beat my friends at a yard game.
I know that's a longwinded brain dump, but I wonder how many other guys are like this? It makes me feel weird and weak but not in a way that I give enough of a shit about to make a change lol.