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I try to do as few things as possible on the Internet, but that is getting harder with each passing second. I’ve still yet to shop on there in any way. Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a crapload of things I’d like to purchase online. This is exactly why I don’t do it. I don’t have a Facebook page and though many people disagree with me, I think that may possibly be a good thing. I feel bad enough avoiding people in the physical world. I’d just as soon not have to avoid many more of them virtually. I mostly use the Internet for news and recipes and occasionally for WebMD, just to confirm that the furry tongue I’m experiencing isn’t actually a bad case of yellow fever. In my heart, I know it’s just a matter of time until I catch up with everyone else and spend half my life on there. I feel like a made a fairly major step towards this end when I eased into the world of fantasy sports.

Back when I was a kid, if a person was into fantasy it meant they read The Hobbit, played Dungeons and Dragons, and got their ass beat on a stunningly regular basis. These days, being involved in fantasy is far more rough and tumble. You have to follow games and box scores and analyze minute statistics in order to get an edge in the competition. So, just so we’re clear, you’re pretty much a douche bag either way except that as a society we’ve decided one thing is pretty cool and fun and the other one is for dipshits. I’ll let you all figure out which one is which.

I eased into the world of fantasy sports a couple of years ago when I joined a buddy’s football contest. It was pretty simple really. This, of course, means it was a gateway league, which would eventually lead me down a much darker path. I’d log on every Saturday afternoon, pick a couple of quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers, maybe even a defense. It took all of about five minutes and if nothing else, it made watching the games on Sunday just a little more fun.

It soon became evident that I really sucked at fantasy sports, or at least fantasy football. There were like twelve people in the freaking league and I was usually in tenth place. Hell, I was only in tenth because the two people behind me couldn’t remember their passwords. I couldn’t just pick my favorite players and call it a day unless I wanted to be terrible. I had to look up stats, see who was the next opponent, and decide whether the weather was conducive to having a big day, plus a ton more stuff. Even after that, I only moved up to ninth place. I was either a little smarter or someone else forgot a password.

This year, I joined a fantasy baseball league halfway through the year, proving that fantasy football was simply a gateway league. “Oh awesome, that marijuana was really good. I think it’s time to start shooting heroin.” They play football once a week, but managing a fantasy baseball team is a full-time freaking job. I check it before I go to bed at night and then recheck it each morning when I get up to get any of the late scores. In case you’re wondering, I’m still in ninth place, but I really seem to be trying harder.

It’s weird, I remember as a kid I would try to imitate the batting stances of big leaguers. I would lean over a row of trashcans to catch a fly ball and pretend I was Willie McGee. I would pitch a ball against the garage and fantasize I was Joaquin Andujar. Now, I’m sitting in a room on a computer and pretending I’m the owner of a baseball team. It’s completely freaking sad if you think about it. When the piss did it become more fun for me to pretend I was the owner of a ball team than it was for me to pretend I was a ball player? Actually, I don’t think it ever really did.

Everyone tells me how fun playing fantasy sports is and I’m just not sure I’m convinced yet. I should probably look up fun n the dictionary and make sure it means what I think it does. It’s something to do, for sure, but that doesn’t necessarily means it’s fun. I really love playing sports and watching sports. It just seems the medium of the computer isn’t especially enhancing this love.

It all reminds me of when another generation decides to impersonate a previous generation. Oh, let’s all dress like we’re hippies or swing dancers from the fifties and go act like they did. For some reason, that’s considered hip and cool for a short period of time. It is not considered hip and cool, however, to dress up as a civil war soldier and reenact battles on the weekends. It’s the same process, but for some reason the period of time you’ve chosen to replicate decides whether you’re cool or not. It’s the same things with spending all your time on a computer. If everyone decides it’s a cool thing to do for a while, then it seems okay. For me it still just feels like I’m in a dark room wishing I was doing something else.