4.3.98

Why People Can Never Admit They Suck

The other day, I was skating with my friend John (for his sake I won't use his real name). He told me he had been skating for about two years and was fairly good. Never seeing him skate before, I figured he was telling the truth. Aiding that story was the fact that he had just recently broken his arm (doing a backside smith down a rail, his friends told me) and his leg (hardflipping down four steps I was told). Add that to the fact that he said he could 360 flip down six steps (who brags about that and lies?), I figured that I would see a master in action.

When we first went skating, he didn't disappoint me, he landed a nollie kickflip on his second try. However, it was the only thing that he could land. We skated for eight hours, and besides flipping his board down everything we could find, commenting how "sweet" that rail looked, or complaining about why he couldn't skate good, he did nothing. He could ollie, 180, kickflip, and shove-it. And nollie kickflip. I thought it was just a little rustiness.

Two months later we skated again. John talked even more crap than before. How he was going to "switch varial heelflip down three" and "switch bluntslide the fun box." Boy does he talk a lot of crap. When we got to where we were skating, my friend's fun box, he tried to ride over the fly box we had. It took him five tries to do it cleanly. It went downhill from there. He did not land a single trick the whole day except for an ollie over a 4x4. Now I know he sucks.

By now you are probably wondering what the point of this story is. For some reason or another, people can't stand to let others think they aren't the best at something they do. Skateboarders are the guiltiest of this. For some unknown reason, skaters always like to brag about stuff they couldn't do if God himself shined himself down on them. There are several reasons this happens.

First of all, the skater sucks. Plain sucks. However, they never skate with anyone so no one knows they suck. They watch videos, writing down the names of tricks they see, and tell everyone they know they can land them. Second, they like to exaggerate. Everyone has "almost" landed that 360 flip, but this guy says he is the master of them. Third, they like to hear themselves talk. Everybody knows this guy.

To stop the laughing when they skate with others, they make up a few excuses. Number one, they say they're stoned. Only losers blame being stoned for why they can't skate. Most anyone who is any good can land something while stoned. Second, they hurt themselves. This normally comes when they fall on some crappy little trick. Finally, they are just having a "bad day." Bullshit.

Please feel free to comment on this essay, email me at paulschweigert@hotmail.com.