I Think I've found Love!

I think I have found love.

I’m generally what most people would call a weird person, I pick interest in the most awkward things, I enjoy what most people hate. I don’t give a shit about what most people give a shit about, and vice versa and as result you will mostly find me not walking with the crowd. I know there are people in the world who would consider my habits and lifestyle perfectly normal but I also know for sure that I’m seen as everything but normal where I come from and else I have ever been.

I have a routine that’s something along the lines of; find something interesting; do it; overdo it; hate the fact that I’m addicted to it; quit it forever or/then go back to it after a long time off and do it in moderation if ultimately I think it’s a good thing. This routine is pretty much the only constant in my life, and I fucking hate routines. I’m so good at it that I have done it with everything from food to relationships to religion, music, smoking, gadgets to games to social networks and everything else. Well everything else until and after I found Arsenal.

I found Arsenal (maybe it found me) and it seems I got stuck. Usually my routine takes anywhere from six months to 4 years to go full cycle but my first memories of Arsenal already goes back to almost a decade and half yet it still feels so new and interesting to me. It feels like someone brought a giant pot, picked the first three steps of my routine, threw them inside, stirred it, making the finest of vegetable soups in the process, stuck me head first into it and then sealed it with whatever the gods sealed Tottenham  to Arsenal’s shadows with.

I have been in love a few times (or so I thought) but all of those times (bar the very first time when I was still at the “find it interesting” part and the ultimate tragedy struck) I have never felt the kind of emotions Arsenal casually incite in me pretty much every weekend. I don’t really feel pressure but every time an Arsenal player goes 1V1 against even the worst of goalkeepers I shit my pants and hope they don’t miss. Every goal still gets me out of my seat and every loss still hurts like physical pain. Even though I try to always stay calm and tell others to do the same it’s really just because seeing or experiencing fellow Gooners bricking it only makes me brick it further.

Now I don’t know why I feel or react this way to an institution whose spiritual home is thousands of miles away from where I was born and grew up in, an institution that frustrates and delights in equal measure these days. I suspect it’s because of the awesome friends and memories I have made over the years through supporting her, maybe because there is always a next game and/or a next season. Maybe it’s because of the classy way the club generally conducts its affairs or maybe because we are by far the greatest team the world has ever seen, I’m not even sure I want to know why. what I do know though is that even as a generally underwhelming season draws to an end, I’m already looking forward to next season and it doesn’t matter the who the manager, players or owners are (so long as they are not Jose Mounrinho or any cunt of such magnitude. I really doubt such a cunt exists) I will be supporting and defending every single one of them to strangers and “fans” alike because it looks to me like this is what love is, it looks to me like I have found love.