After a very disappointing rain out, Thursday morning found me and Z back out on the court. I jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead, then he came back and beat me 7-6 (7-5). A chance glance at my post from August 26 shows that more or less the exact same thing happened then.
This time there was a distinct moment after I was up 4-0 and was about to serve. I had this adrenaline surge and I thought to myself that I had to allow myself to beat him and to be better than him. I have always had an odd relationship with competition. I am, on the one hand, competitive as fuck. But I don't care that much about winning, which puts me at a distinct disadvantage when competing with people who really do.
It must go back to childhood, when I was a much worse athlete and didn't win much. I must have convinced myself that losing was OK (and it kind of is) and got this idea that I was worse than the other guys baked into my brain. Which was fine, because, after all, I was clearly intellectually superior to them, except maybe Konanc, but there was never any conflict between us. Praise the Lord, because he would have kicked my ass.
Then there's also just wanting to not have an imbalance with friends. When David and I were playing a lot of tennis in Princeton back in the late aughts, we would swing back and forth from day to day, and there was a clear benefit to our friendship to maintaining equilibrium, which disincented each of us from progressing too much.
Josh, Crabill and I were hanging out the other day talking about stuff and I mentioned my ongoing tennis war with Z and Robert wistfully mentioned that he didn't have much competition in his life just then, and kind of missed it. One thing is clear, both Z and I and raising our games and getting fitter. I have in fact been beating him more, I am just too polite to write much about the wins.
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