Quote: (02-10-2019 09:13 PM)Rang off the Pipe Wrote:
I almost considered putting this into the fitness section, but I didn't think the spirit of this post would really be suitable for that part of the forum. This post may come off as venting, but I do think there may be some validity to what I'm going to discuss.
tldr; The social benefits of co-ed sports are vastly overrated and they aren't the greatest way to meet girls
For about 5 months now I've been playing a certain team sport as way to do an activity that I (generally) like to partake in. It's a "recreational" co-ed league that runs pretty much the whole year. When I joined the league, my main focus initially was not to meet people, but rather playing a sport that I've liked and enjoy some degree of success. But since the beginning of the calendar year, I've made some significant changes to my lifestyle (see this thread) and have focused more on the potential social circle aspect as a part of targeting the improvement of my well-being and reducing social isolation. The league has turned out to be a failure on the social aspect and absolutely devoid of any competitive success (for me anyway).
The sport of this league is not one in which there is a massive following, so the pool of players is limited. In any given season there are no more than 6 teams of 10 people (and 10 people is the best-case scenario). This results in a few teams composed of people familiar with each other who have been playing the sport for years...and then everybody else. Therefore, true competition doesn't exist in the league. I myself am not terrible and know some fundamentals of the sport but I'm not very skilled and my mind doesn't do well with the chaos of team sports. I know more and more why that is now, but I digress.
Ever since joining the league I've had the misfortune of being on free-agent teams that are composed of a few guys with any semblance of ability. The girls have no clue what they're doing and by the time we're done getting blown out, nobody is in the mood to stick around, talk, or head out to a bar to socialize. Hell, on just about every other team, there are girls that are either butch and clearly play the sport, or are somewhat aware enough to not screw up things for their teams. This is especially true with the few dominant teams in the league. Now I'm basically at a point where I'm fed up and visibly angry in the middle of games, and while I'll show up to the remaining games out of loyalty and respect, I'm probably done after the current (my third) season. I'll feel some withdrawal from abandoning an activity that I've done for so long, but I think I'll be better off.
A few years ago, I played on a hockey team almost identical to what you are doing here, co ed, on an indoor court. I was asked to be a part of a team with a bunch of architects so we actually had some decent looking chicks on our team and the league too had some nice looking chicks playing on other teams. Now it turns out that our team wasn't very good and I ended up being one of the best players (I played hockey for years). We lost a lot but won a few and I actually enjoyed it a lot. Dude, honestly it's just a rec league, I wouldn't take it that seriously. If you like hockey, keep playing and then do another sport with more chicks playing like beach vball in the summer. I did that too one year but I sucked so bad at it that I stopped after one summer lol.
You could try and hook up with a better team in the years to come but I wouldn't give it up. There's no feeling like being good at hockey ( chicks eyes light up when I tell them I play hockey) and soccer, volleyball etc just don't compare, I'm sorry. Anyone can play those sports but hockey is so unique and requires stupid amounts of skill that few people can get good at it. Why give up something you really like doing?