Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

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Never studied in the US but on;

> but culturally I care less about American sports and music

Culturally I do not even understand this fascination with sports; we watch football (soccer) when there is some worldcup on and our country is playing but besides that the whole highschool quarterback and rooting for your teams all seems like wasted time to me. That might be cultural.

But I always turned that into a strength when making friends. If most people do something like watch sports or listen to music I do not like, I find the people that do not; those will be a niche. But I do not seek them out in obvious places with all likeminded people; when I go to AUS or US (and certainly when I was younger and looking for (girl)friends more) I go to sports bars and or clubs (where they will play music I do not like); in those places there will be 1-2 people like me that were dragged along or went along with their friends and who will be bored. Those end up talking with me and sometimes become good friends (two American ex girlfriends and many good friends, some I still do business with like that).

I am American and could care less about football, it does limit a lot of guy relationships if you don't care about watching sports. Playing sports is so much fun though, and a way better way to meet people.

Yes, it is all taste etc; I like doing sports (I don't like ball sports, but that's just taste); weights/martial arts etc and I still make friends that way. But watching... I just don't understand it, but I won't argue it either; it's just not my taste. It does prevent a lot of interaction though as so many Americans & Australians are fanatical about supporting / watching and I just do not get it at all. I go to my own bar when the EK/WK (europe cup/world cup) are on but I just pass out in boredom after 10 minutes. It's just a matter of taste; I end up outside talking with spouses that came with others who cannot watch either. It's fine. It's opportunity; got permanent clients for my business like that more than once like that.

That's true. I couldn't care less about televised sports and professional athletes. Watching a game on T.V. feels like watching someone else's vacation videos. I'd rather get outside and do both activities myself.

That being the case, guy conversations that start out, "Hey, did you see the game last night?" typically end in awkward silence when I say, "No."

For non-native English speakers:

“I could care less about $THING” and “I couldn't care less about $THING” mean the same thing. Each means that the speaker does not care about $THING.

I'm a non-American native English speaker and "I could care less.." confused me until I had it explicitly explained to me. I took it as some kind of inversion of "I couldn't care less" which I had heard plenty. It still doesn't make any sense (if you could care less, it's implicit that you care to some degree, right..?) but at least I get it now.

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