Sibling Building, the MLS Cup, and an Insatiable Desire to Be Liked

Last Saturday as the majority of the sports world sat down to watch the various college football championship games I plopped myself down on my couch to watch the MLS Cup (Major League Soccer’s championship game).  By the time the game had progressed to sudden death penalty-kicks, I was sitting cross-legged in wide-eyed amazement on the floor two feet in front of the screen.  When the game was over and my team had won I was overflowing with excitement and I desperately tried to think of who I could possibly call/text/email. The answer, sadly, was no one.   I know not one human being who would care in any way about the winner of the MLS Cup. 

Sure, I could text a friend and force him to pretend to be interested – I am fortunate enough to have friends willing to do that – but is it really that fun when you have to force someone to pretend that they are interested in your hobbies?

As I moved back to the couch to watch the postgame celebration I thought back to nine months ago when I ordered MLS Live – a viewing package that allows you to watch nearly all of the MLS games through a streaming device like your phone, tablet, or Roku.  I mentioned to a friend that I had signed up for this package and his response was, “That is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard.”  That’s an exact quote.  I saved the email.  His point was simply that it was inconceivable that anyone would watch soccer of his own free will, let alone PAY FOR IT.

I’ve spent the last nine months wondering where my love of professional soccer originated.  Obviously since I know not one person who likes it, it’s not like I have some great family history or childhood memories of watching soccer on TV.  Dad and I weren’t exactly driving down to Estadio Azteca on weekends to watch our favorite team in my formative years.  So why?  Where did it come from?

It came from nowhere.  It came from me.  It came from a pure love of the game and the enjoyment I get from watching it.  Many sports fans like a game, or a team, because it represents some link to happy childhood memories.  Watching Steelers games with Dad.  Going to a Yankees game with Grandpa.  Whatever, you get the point.  Me and soccer?  I just like it.

But, oh if only soccer were my lone unusual entertainment preference.  I tend to walk the narrow path when it comes to TV shows, books, and music, and just about everything else you can think of.  Think I’m exaggerating?  OK, my favorite TV Show is Inspector Lewis and my favorite musician/songwriter is James McMurtry.  Not exactly mainstream tastes, is it?

I watch Inspector Lewis by myself when everyone else in the house has gone to bed, and I listen to McMurtry on my iPod when I’m alone.  I don’t know anyone who has even heard of this show or this musician, let alone  who likes them.

I don’t, however, want to give the impression that I’m some mysterious loner who marches to the beat of his own drummer and considers himself too good for popular culture.  I read Stephen King (350 million books sold) and I listen to Van Halen (96.5 million albums sold).  So no, I’m exactly the poster boy of the counterculture rebel.

But for the most part, my day-to-day life involves things you’ve never heard of.  And when I want to talk about the MLS Cup, the latest episode of Inspector Lewis, or James McMurtry’s newest song, I find myself having a conversation with the fat face in the mirror.  Sometimes the cat, but I can tell his interest is only half-hearted at best.

So, why is this?  How did this happen?  I am firmly convinced that my “unique” tastes are a direct result of being an only child.  Without the influence of siblings I was left alone to pick and choose what I liked and didn’t like.  I’m a father of three now, and I see this even clearer than before I had kids.  I see my 4-year old asking for Batman toys for Christmas because his older brother is REALLY into Batman.  I didn’t have an older brother influencing my tastes and I didn’t have to share my TV or radio with other kids.  I made up my own mind about what I liked from the time I was old enough to talk.

Now that I’m a 42 year old, I find that my tastes are in line with almost no one I know.  Sometimes it’s frustrating, but I’m not going to pretend that I like The Voice, Duck Dynasty, or Dancing with the Stars just to fit in.  There’s a saying within Catholic culture, “Be in the world, not of it.”  That fits my lifestyle, even if I lived that way long before I went around quoting Catholic culture.

Last March (right about the time I ordered the MLS Live package) I found myself in my back yard with a distant Canadian cousin discussing all of the important things in life.  As the night wore on, and the empty bottles stacked up, he posed the question of the year.  He asked me what had caused me to reach out to try to forge a relationship with my Canadian cousins (himself specifically) over twenty years ago.  And he wanted to know why I had been so committed to keeping those relationships in tact all of these years later.

At the time I mumbled something about staying in touch with my roots, but I’m sure my answer was somewhat incoherent.  Now that I’ve had nine months to ponder it (he probably has no idea that I’ve thought about it daily since he asked it) I finally have an answer.  I was sibling-building.  I was jealous of those who had brothers and sisters, so I was reaching out across national borders to find some fake siblings of my own.

And when I examine my own history with friends and relatives here in America I can see a sad pattern of failed sibling-building emerge.  I have a history of desperately, and often pathetically, trying to find a meaningful relationship with friends and cousins over the years and meeting with failure at every venture.  And quite frankly, I made a damn fool out of myself in the process.

I married well, and I don’t have a history of bad relationships with women, but oh man do I have a history of bad attempts at sibling-building.  There’s a disturbing trend of me latching on to acquaintances and relatives who simply show no desire in being a loyal friend, let alone a fabricated sibling. 

Even now I find myself tempted to interact with people who have treated my poorly in the past.  Maybe that’s not sibling-building as much as it’s an insatiable desire to be liked.  But even if it’s the latter, I still say my history as an only child factors heavily into it.

When I was very young I grew up with a cousin who was seven months older than me.  We saw each other daily in the summers and even when school was in session my mother would babysit him in the afternoons.  We spent holidays together and he went on vacations with us.  When we were really young, Santa Claus would deliver his presents to our house.  He would even come with me and my dad on Father-and-Son campouts with the Florida National Guard.  I can truly say he was as close a thing to having an actual sibling as I’ve ever experienced.

Twenty five years ago this month, shortly after he had just turned 18, he died in a house fire.  It would be melodramatic for me to say I lost my best friend on December 11, 1988, because truthfully we had been drifting apart for many years prior.  He wasn’t a REAL sibling after all, and his life had begun to go in a different direction than mine by the time we were in our early teens.  I lived in a new subdivision with both of my parents, and he was raised by a single mother in a neighborhood that was dangerous and drug-infested even thirty years ago.  The last time I saw him was in the summer of 1988 in a chance encounter at the Aladdin’s Castle game room in Normandy Mall.  The mall, just like Kenny, is long gone now and relegated to a special corner of my memory.

Sometimes when I really allow myself to think about it, the idea of having an actual sibling is kind of creepy.  From my world view there is only one combination of Hale and Sauls, and Vincent be thy name.  I can’t even totally fathom another human being having the same parents as I do.  It seems weird and creepy and maybe even a little bit wrong somehow.

In one of my international sibling-building forays I was lucky enough to stumble upon a kindred spirit.  I was able to manufacture a sibling out of a distant cousin who wound up being someone who to this day knows me better than just about anyone else.  My pretend sibling is female and six or seven years younger than me – honestly not who I would have thought would fill the role.  Now, when I refer to this person as a pretend sibling, you need to understand something: for years I told people I had a sister.  Literally.  I know, that’s pathetic and a sign of a significant emotional instability.   But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you – I have always REALLY wanted a sibling.

My weird insistence on telling people I had a sister did lead to one funny story.  I was talking to some friends at work in the late 1990’s when the subject of being an only child came up.  One of the participants in this conversation said, “Yeah, they’re WEIRD.  They never learned how to share and they’re just not well adjusted.”  When I told her that I was an only child, and that my sister was of the manufactured variety, she was obviously embarrassed.  And probably a bit concerned for my emotional health.

There’s a concept in product development where the analogy of grenades and missiles is used.  Grenades are thrown hoping they hit something, whereas missiles are guided specifically to a precise target.  When I engaged in sibling-building all those years ago, I was definitely just lobbing grenades.  I sought a sibling-like friendship with neighbors, classmates, first cousins in Jacksonville, and distant cousins in Canada.

My pretend Canadian sister has filled this role for well over 20 years now and I couldn’t be happier about it.  In a very real way, all of those grenades lobbed across the continent are quite embarrassing in hindsight.  I basically made a fool out of myself to people who had their own lives to lead and had no interest in forming this fake siblinghood with me.  But, because I was actually able to find someone who has played an important role in my life – even if I only do get to see her once every few years – it was all worth it.  Would I suffer the humiliation of all of those grenades that never made contact all over again if it meant hitting this one target?  Absolutely.  No hesitation.

As the years, and decades, have rolled past I’ve seen my share of people weave in and out of my life.  Friends that I called brothers have vanished into thin air.  Coworkers that I seemingly have nothing in common with have become lifelong friends.  But I’ve reached a point in my life now where I can finally put an end to the sibling-building.  I am very comfortable with who I am now, and I know that I am blessed mightily with a few good friends who have stood the test of time.  And those few carelessly tossed grenades across the Canadian border have yielded special friendships with some very special cousins – including the aforementioned pretend sister, plus the one who started all of this soul-searching with his simple question in my backyard last March.

Part of the maturation process involves accepting things that you cannot change.  I now accept that I won’t have any REAL siblings.  And I won’t ever be a REAL uncle.  I have also accepted that I can’t do anything to erase the humiliation of those sibling-building grenades that never made contact.  It is what it is, and it’s astoundingly unhealthy to dwell on unfortunate past actions.

Now that I have my own kids it’s kind of like I’ve created my own allies in life.  Heck, some of them even look a little bit like me.  Just this past week one of them paused briefly to glance at the James McMurtry video I was watching on YouTube.  There’s hope after all.

I always like to end with a video, so here's one of my favorite songs of all time - Levelland by James McMurtry.  And while I don't know for sure, I'd be willing to bet this song is about an only child.

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