When Someone Says “I Don’t Like You”

Back in the day, I used to live in Los Angeles. I still know a handful of people in the SoCal area, so anytime I visit I like to see what people are up to.

Like me, my buddy Mike is a big ol’ basketball fan. We met in college on the basketball court and bonded right away.

Of course, back then, we were able to play half a dozen games, go eat at the dining hall, and then immediately go back to play some more and still feel great afterward.

If we tried that today, we’d need to be wheelbarrowed off the court.

Nonetheless, Mike always has a couple of good runs of pickup basketball available, so if the timing aligns, I join him on the court.

Outside of a couple of occasions I’ve gone to play with him, I have not played pickup basketball since before the pandemic.

Things are a little different on the park court. There are no officials, people are often more aggressive, and I will always get my Fitbit knocked off my wrist.

(Maybe I should just learn not to wear it. That’s my bad.)

Pickup Basketball Adventures

Anyway, we had a pretty terrible stretch of games. Mike and another guy on our team, Gregory, had some fun jawing with each other during those games.

If you picture a “stereotypical” southern California guy, Gregory fits that bill. He told us he had been coming out regularly, but an injury put him out of commission for a while. And we could tell, since he routinely neglected to make it across halfcourt.

Lack of effort is one thing, but Gregory also criticized people for not hustling or being in the wrong position.

Mike and I have a similar mindset about on-court criticism: There’s a time and a place for it, but if you’re standing 65 feet from the basket with your hands on your knees, perhaps don’t talk down on someone for being a step slow.

Gregory is not the main villain in this email, though. I mainly wanted to mention him because it’s fun to yell the name “Gregory.”

Try it right now.

“YOU CAN DO BETTER, GREGORY!”

Didn’t that feel good?

Anyway, back to the subject line of this email. We switched to another court and joined a different group of players.

We played one game there without incident, then got talked into one more game before we hit the road.

And this is where things went south.

A guy on the other team—let’s call him Starburst for the purposes of this story—immediately started talking trash.

He shot a three-pointer over one of our guys and while the ball was still in the air, yelled, “directly in your eye.”

For comparison, one guy on our team shouted “cash” before airballing a three. Then on the other end he admitted he’s never made a three-pointer when he’s yelled cash.

This is the proper way to trash talk.

Starburst also made a couple of questionable calls, which, fine, whatever. But he was insistent that it was okay to save a ball, step out of bounds, and then touch it again as long as you didn’t dribble.

That’s not accurate in any level of basketball ever.

Toward the end of the game, Mike and Starburst started going back and forth a bit. Starburst was throwing some elbows and seemed surprised that Mike was putting his weight back on him (this is often sometimes referred to as “playing defense”).

In the end, there was nothing more than some raised voices. Our team won pretty easily. In fact, I’m going to tell you we won all of our games and I hope you believe me.

(But we really did win this one.)

After every pickup game, I’ll give a high-five or fist bump to each player on both teams. It’s a way to signify, “hey, we had some fun out there and didn’t get hurt. Nice work.”

I did this process with the other eight people without incident. Then I got to Starburst and stuck my hand out.

“Get out of here,” he said, slapping my hand away. “I don’t like you.”

I was floored. I reacted like Jerry Seinfeld’s mom. How could anyone not like ME?!

I asked him why and he said he didn’t want to talk to me, but I could “come find out.”

“Is that not what I’m trying to do right now?” I thought.

As lovely as this park was, it was not the place where I felt like getting into a tiff, scuffle, or howdy-doody.

So, like a smart adult, I walked away.

And now, I’m writing this email in some pain because I’m no longer 21 years old, and my body gets sore much more easily.

But I also didn’t have someone attempt to take a tire iron to my knee. That’s a win.

There’s probably a moral here. If someone’s mad because they don’t know how basketball works, it’s best to just let ’em stay dumb. Ignorance is bliss, after all.