I went to a semi-pro indoor soccer game about ten years ago with my dad and my cousins. It was the type of thing you do with younger kids who can't tell the difference between entertaining and top level athletics and a lesser form of athletics. The tickets are cheaper, the kids can't tell the difference between top pros and journeymen guys, and everybody is basically happy with this.

I was the oldest kid there in our group and I don't my cousins or even my father took the game and this scene in in the way that I did.

The game was in our city's stadium that used to be a big deal and was the primary stadium for sports but after its heyday was over became the place used by our city's semi-pro or nobody-really-cares teams. The place had seen better days, didn't look like a world class arena or stadium, and I would say that it wasn't even a quarter filled and there was barely anyone there to watch this game. I don't remember who won or lost and I didn't even care if our team did at the time and I only remember two things from that day. One was the group of rent-a-cheerleaders who were likely girls who were high school or college cheerleaders who were lucky to see a few dimes from doing their thing that day and that's about it. They didn't look all that great, didn't seem to be that into what they were doing, and to this day I don't know why cheerleaders were performing at an indoor soccer game that nobody cared about. It was as if they were hired to give some sort of cheer 'em up performance or crappy pep rally for a bunch of middle-aged guys who just got let go at some software company. Basically, it was just sad and useless.

There was this group of guys who were probably in their twenties at the game and I guess they were there because they couldn't find anything better to do than pay for overpriced piss beer while watching something no one else wanted to watch. One of the guys was wasted and kept yelling out the jersey number of this one cheerleader and he just wouldn't stop yelling it over and over while cat-calling her and just being a total loser. You could tell that this girl was getting uncomfortable and I was feeling a similar way and just wanted the guy to shut up and for the game to be over. I noticed this guy sitting alone in the middle of the stands next to me and he was just staring and looking back at forth at the drunk guy and the cheerleaders and a little bit at the crappy game being played. He didn't move a muscle, just stared and slightly moved his eyes and head barely at all to keep staring. He had a t-shirt on, a sort of beat up black leather jacket or cardigan or something, blue jeans and white sneakers. He looked about 45 to me and he had glasses with small eyes. After sitting and watching for a while he got up slowly, stared at the drunk guys for about twenty seconds without moving, exited his empty row of seats, and walked up the stairs past me and left. The impression I had of him, rightly or wrongly, was that he was probably just some random lonely guy or something who was bored, decided to go and see some cheap soccer game because he had nothing better to do, and then got treated to the sad spectacle that I just described to you. He thought that maybe he would enjoy himself for a few bucks just for an hour or so and then leave. Instead, he left in a state worse off than the state that he entered the place in.

I never forgot that guy.

This Fall I went to watch as many college soccer games locally in my area as I possibly could. I never did this at all prior to this past year. I did this because I had my soccer career and playing days cut short when I was only 15 and recently I thought a lot about just what it was that I lost in losing soccer and sports and how that has affected my life both on and off the field for over a decade now. It's probably the worst thing that ever happened to me and it hurts me now more than it did the day that I had to make the decision to stop playing when I was just a teenager. I've had years go by now and this means that I've been able to reflect on what it was that I lost in a way that I wasn't able to do in the years soon after I stopped playing.

Things are always clearer in hindsight and you need some years behind you before you can see things clearly. That's why it hurts now that I'm older more than it ever did when I was younger.

I enjoyed most of the games that I watched and imagined how well I might have done if I could have kept playing. I kept thinking about whether or not I could play for some of the teams that I watched and it felt like I was out there kicking every ball with these young college guys as if I was one of them - almost like I was a ghost out there running around with them without them knowing I was even there. Sometimes this made me feel good and other times it made me sad. I kept coming back and watching each week anyway.

There was one game that I went to not far from where I saw that indoor soccer game and that guy years ago. There weren't many people in the rusty metal bleachers, the weather wasn't great and the atmosphere was drab and pretty lifeless, a few of the college kids who attended seemed either high or drunk to me and they kept yelling out what seemed like insider jokes to one of their friends on the home team's bench and one of the more obnoxious kids kept shouting insults at one or two players on the other team. I'm still surprised he wasn't removed from the stands but I guess no one really cared enough to confront him. There were some girls from the soccer team and their friends watching the game nearby on the bleachers and some of them looked pretty good. Some of the guys who were shouting and being idiots throughout the game kept talking to each other and huddling up together while laughing and looking over at the girls sitting nearby in a way that made me think that they were probably talking about which ones they wanted to fuck or do whatever else with. It felt sort of juvenile to me and lame. Then I realized that I was probably as lame as they were for being there. It wasn't a great game to watch, both teams weren't all that great, the stands were empty barring a few people, it was too cold and damp to be outside, and I looked like I was the only person that probably didn't belong at the game. I was in work clothes, was too young to be someones parent, definitely wasn't a student, probably wasn't an alumni, and I was sitting alone in the stands without anyone else with me.

That's when I remembered that guy I saw alone at that game years ago who got up and left before it was over. I went and drove out to watch a nothing special game of soccer just to try to find some cheap and easy entertainment for an hour or so and it wound up being not worth it. I was basically trying to get as close to the field again as I possibly could and instead I never felt farther away from it all these years later. I felt like a washed up guy and athlete and I felt bad. When I considered other things going on in my life that weren't great at the time and that didn't make me feel too good about myself, I felt even worse.

I felt like I was that guy.