I Hate Football

Last night against my better judgement me & my girlfriends M(little LouLou's Mom) & D let our menfolk talk us into going out to watch the Brazil-Japan game at a coffee-shop on the Corniche. So the 6 of us met at the coffee shop around 10:30pm. That's me & M with our respective husbands & D with her bf who also happens to be my uncle - thanks to my short-lived but brilliant career as a matchmaker. One big happy family.

It started out ok. We were all hungry & the food was good. It was disposed of quickly. My husband made me have a Margarita pizza followed by waffles & choc ice cream. He always puts me on a diet of pizza & chocolate when he thinks I need to gain weight. Is it any wonder that I love this man? How can I not love a man who force-feeds me pizza & choc?

Afterwards we ordered Moroccan tea & sheesha. They arrived right before the game started. Things started to go downhill from there. At least for me. I tried to get into the spirit of things. I really did. But am just not the stuff that sports spectators are made of. If a game interested me that much I'd be playing it. Am sorry but watching other people play sports does not do anything for me. It DOESN'T. So shoot me. Even dinner with the Swedish dentists at their worst was never that boring. I mean with the Swedish dentists at least I could be heard. With the football fanatics even if they did happen to be my nearest & dearest no one could hear me over all the TV & the cheering & the screaming in the coffee-shop. And no one wanted to.

Was getting restless. The place started to make me feel claustrophobic as more & more people kept pouring in to watch the game. Was getting sticky & hot - not sure if that was nerves or if the place was too packed for the AC to handle. The noise was giving me a headache. And all that cigarette & sheesha smoke. That tells you how bored I was. Would noise, a little sweat, crowds & smoke bother me if I was out at my favorite club in the middle of the dance floor? Hell no.

At some point K started combing his fingers through my hair. I looked up at him but he had his eyes glued to the screen. I knew he wasn't being affectionate there. Force of habit. If am within arm's length he can't keep his hands off my hair. He does it to keep his hands busy. It doesn't mean he's paying any attention to me. At least not consciously.

The funny thing is that if am trying to concentrate on something I start playing with my hair too. I twist the strands at the front & I even chew on them sometimes if am really nervous. And then if he's anywhere near me & he starts playing with my hair too you get this really bizzare situation where we're BOTH playing with my hair, me in the front, him in the back.

On this occasion though the feel of his fingers in my hair just added to the claustrophobia. It was like one more reason why I couldn't move. No room, too many people in the way who would kill me if I tried to stand up so they couldn't see the screen & then this....

Was saved by the bell. Or by the half-time actually. Things got much quieter then - although there was still a lot of animated chatter. The guys broke into a heated discussion about the game. The girls joined in eventually. And I kept thinking oh God one more hour of this, I could not live through it.

I called my husband's name a couple of times but he was talking too animatedly to hear me. Even though he was still playing with my hair. I didn't have the energy to speak any louder so I started tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. It made me feel about 6 years old. When he asked me if everything was ok I told him I wanted to go for a walk. He said where. I said outside. He said it was too hot & humid outside. I said it might be nice by the water. He kissed me. It was a shut-up-woman-you-talk-too-much kind of kiss. And he went back to talking football with everyone else. A few minutes later he suddenly turned to me & kissed me again - for a little longer this time. Even though I was already keeping my mouth shut so he could watch the game in peace.

I love to be kissed. And at that particular moment I was grateful for any crumb of attention from anyone. But he & my uncle once clashed over this sort of thing. Not everyone in my family thinks very highly of public displays of affection. I waited to see if my uncle would make an issue but he was busy talking to the other guy & didn't seem to have noticed.

I said I needed to go find the bathroom - feeling even more like a 6-yr-old. Going to the bathroom was the excuse I used a lot when I was little & couldn't sit still in class. I felt a bit better after freshening up in there though. Except on my way out a waitress approached me & said the manager would like to speak to me. The manager was also a lady. She explained that some people had complained that they were scandalized by the fact that my husband was kissing me & touching my hair infront of their women & impressionable youngsters etc....What could I say? It was embarrassing & annoying but I knew it could turn into something serious. In UAE the golden rule is to do what you want as long as no one complains. And some prudish religious fanatic obviously complained or the management would never have approached us in that manner.I've seen couples do a lot more & get away with it. I didn't feel like being arrested for indecent exposure though. It would have been the perfect ending to a perfect night no? I mean he doesn't have anything to worry about. He's an EU citizen. No one in UAE is going to throw a Westerner in jail for kissing in public. They'd never risk a diplomatic incident over something so silly. But me? Well if they jailed me forever they risked no diplomatic incident whatsoever. I have several passports but they're all Middle Eastern.

I went back & changed seats with M so I was not sitting right next to my husband. Didn't feel like telling him what happened because it would have pissed him off & he'd have gone & started some sort of fight. He keeps saying it's no one's business what we do & I keep trying to explain that that's not how the system works here, that this is not Scandinavia etc....Wasn't in the mood for that conversation last night. Besides he didn't have the attention span to spare me.

In the car on the way home I told him & as expected he asked why I didn't tell him while we were there so he could find out who complained & give them a piece of his mind. Sigh.

I made him take me dancing afterwards. He hates dancing as much as I hate football I think. Because I've decided that as of last night, I hate football. Am coming out of the closet. I think football is a silly sport. And even if am the only person in the entire galaxy who feels that way am not going to hide it any longer.