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I am enjoying soccer a lot.  It has become one of my favorite activities.  I look forward to it all week.  I think it lets me express my latent aggression. 

Last week’s game was a bit too much though.  We were playing a team with a very hard edge.  Rather than seeming like moms, they came off as a group of barely rehabilitated cons.  There are several large women on the team who also happen to be fairly young.  They use their heft to physically move competitors out of their way in battles for the ball.  I have seen them knock some of the smaller women on my team to the floor.  They are strong and quick and very aggressive.  I would hazard a guess that they are a good ten years younger than 35 – the supposed minimum age for our league. 

Early in our game, I found myself up against one of them.  As we went after the ball, she would try to muscle me out of the way and I worked on giving as good as I got.  The ball spun away from us and as we headed after it, she gave me a hard shove with her elbow.  Because the ball was pretty far away from us at this point, no one was looking our way and this obvious foul went unobserved. 

I reacted immediately, yelling, “Hey, that’s not okay!”
 
She responded angrily back at me, “Hey, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.  If you’re gonna pop me, I’m gonna pop you back!”
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I didn’t do that to you,”  I shouted.
 
“What did I do?”  She was really posturing now, pawing the ground, head wagging.
 
“You shoved your elbow into my side.”  I made a gesture showing what she’d done which involved balling up my fist, cocking my elbow and swinging it.
 
“Are you putting your fist in my face?” she said menacingly.
 
Feeling both chastened and manipulated, I yelled, “Noooo!  I’m just trying to show you what you did.”
 
At this point, the ref jumped in and threw us both out of the game for several minutes.  I sat on the bench, trying to calm down.  I felt angry and sad that the game I loved so much had been taken over with this negativity.  During our “time out” it seemed our teams had been infected by this fractious energy.  All the players seemed defensive and on-edge. 
 
We came back into the game and for the rest of the time, I worked on playing as clean as I could.  I was tough when I needed to be, but I was careful not to overstep. 

They beat us 3-0.  It’s not that we mind losing.  We do it all the time and we still have fun.  But this game wasn’t fun.  It was unpleasant.  I was glad to see it end.  We shook hands with our competitors, but none of us were smiling.  I moved in the direction of my big, angry girlfriend, wishing for resolution.  As she turned toward me, I could see that she shared my hope. 

I said, “Look, I just want to be clear.  I was never going to punch you.” 
 
She already knew this, of course.  “Well, you know, on the team where I usually play, no one would say anything about it.  If you pop me, I’m going to pop you back,” she said again.
 
“Well, I don’t think I ‘popped’ you, but I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” I said.
 
“Anyway,” she said, “I just want to tell you that I think you’re an awesome defender.”  Whether she meant it or not, it felt good to hear.
 
“Oh, thanks,” I said, “You’re really good too.”