IF YOU’RE anything like me – and that’s not always a compliment – this is the best and worst time of the year.
It’s the best weather, the magpies have stopped swooping, I think, and there’s nothing pressing on the calendar until Christmas Eve shopping.
Yet it’s also the worst, because the cricket isn’t on TV yet and football season is over … or is it?
I only got to one game of footy of any code this year, and it wasn’t even my team.
A small bunch of sorry Essendon fans had their sometimes-weekly bus from the country to Melbourne cancelled.
I foolishly agreed to drive these suckers to the game in Melbourne and back to country New South Wales on a Friday night if they got me a good ticket.
The first of many insults I received that night was when the most senior member looked at me with contempt as she watched me, a Collingwood supporter, put on an Essendon scarf.
I quickly explained that I was only doing this to make them feel better, that this behaviour was rare and supporting any team in any way other than the Magpies was completely out of character. She scoffed “Well, I couldn’t do it!”
Would she have preferred I dress in Collingwood colours? In my job, I do that all week anyway.
So we get to our good seats, and they were good seats mind you, and who should be standing right in front of us at the fence waving? The Sydney Swans’ mascot Syd “Swannie” Skilton himself!
I ripped off my scarf, ran down to Swannie, hugged him and shouted out to these ungrateful Essendon fans to take a photo of us. They hesitated, but eventually these ingrates took a photo of this historic event.
On returning to our seats, the Essendon fans explained to me that you don’t get a photo with the opposition’s mascot. It was a one-off!
So the game starts, and this unbelievably obnoxious Sydney Swans fan sits right behind my earhole. His loud cheering and abusive commentary every time things didn’t go his way was very hard to endure. And every single time Buddy Franklin got the ball, this gentleman was positively unbearable!
I became pretty quiet and a Bombers fan reminded me that you can report antisocial behaviour at the footy. I thanked her and pointed out that he wasn’t actually doing anything wrong.
I began to muse on why this man in particular so grinded on me, as opposed to the many other Sydney supporters around me. When the reason dawned on me it was not a pleasant experience.
I remembered a lesson Augustine of Hippo taught that was very educational in my current predicament: we tend to dislike in others the very faults that we find within ourselves.
Why didn’t I like this man? He was too much like myself. Ouch!
Of course, he wasn’t a carbon copy or a perfect clone.
And as the game progressed, I noticed three very obvious areas where he and I differed.
I remembered a lesson Augustine of Hippo taught that was very educational in my current predicament: we tend to dislike in others the very faults that we find within ourselves. Why didn’t I like this man? He was too much like myself. Ouch!
Firstly, you know how I’ve got my clearly visible rugged good looks? Well, this guy thought he was just it, and it was obvious to everybody!
Secondly, while I tell the jokes that we have all come to know and love over the years, this dude was using all the same, tired old worn-out gags we’ve all heard a million times before.
And finally, you know how I’m a bit of a walking encyclopedia and always willing to generously share my knowledge? Not this guy! He was this big know-it-all bloke who basically never shut up!
If it’s true that we dislike particularly the faults in others that we actually see in ourselves, should we despair and wander off into the desert? No, quite the opposite.
When we realise their faults are our faults too, we can be at least more forgiving now and patient towards those we dislike.
At best, when we see the splinter in someone else’s eye, it may now reveal to us how annoying we can be to others and motivate us to correct our faults.
Twitter: @fatherbrendanelee
