I've only played bowling once or twice, and while I agree it's not the most entertaining sport ever I thought one of its most compelling use-cases was to bring people together.

Yes, you might be "less enthusiastic" when your friend gets a lucky strike, but that's the whole point, you don't go there as a professional player keen to win no matter what, what you did describe would be the perfect moment to make fun of said friend, a third friend might reply that "you're jealous cause he's better than you" etc etc, I mean things that people usually talk with friends and that do make life less stressful.