The other night was going to start the Dortmund-Monterreyone of those fantasies that the World Cup is giving us, and I asked myself an inappropriate question: why? Why I do not turn off the TV and I'm going to bed, if I'm tired and I am very sleepy, if I did the same last night and then I barely sleep because the children immediately wake up, if I am on vacation theory and something should rest. Why do I look at these games if I don't care who wins, if I don't even have fun, or at least why I don't see it repeated tomorrow. I wondered that and I didn't know what to answer. I only assumed reality: when it stops being fun, you are officially addicted.
And that is the truth. Without realizing it, I have become an addict to this World Cup. It started as a joke, to try, because my friends and all that did, but I did not measure the consequences and now I cannot stop. I recognize that at first he had his grace: the tournament appeared as a trip to a happy time and without problems, to the United States of our childhood novelty, with the brightness of colors still to invent. But a few weeks have passed, my friends have resumed their lives, and I return again and again where I shouldn't return.
Kylian Mbappe and Weston McKennie, from Juventus, shake hands after a club World Cup match. / Associated Press/LaPresse / LAP
I intuit that I am a victim of some mass experiment, and that comforts me a bit. Perhaps there is a superior, non -human intelligence, that is altering my will, because this is delusional. In fact, at times I doubt that what I am watching on TV is real. It does not help, being honest, the behavior of some fans who focus during the matches. Often, what they do has nothing to do with what is happening in the game, as if they had been commissioned to artificial intelligence. There is a band serve, they change flat and two types appear that kiss the shirt shield. Or nothing happens at all and they alter the maximum. My confusion grows as my problems, because I inexplicably can't stop looking. I speak alone.
Everything happens
At times I live with multiple fear: on the one hand I am worried that this never ends and fulminates my social and family life, and on the other I fear what will be of me when the World Cup ends. All those important things – medical, financial, administrative – that I am postponing and that are going to accumulate because now I have another priority. All those things will attack me like a boumeran.
Somehow, I should have seen this trap come. I know I'm not alone in this because I've never been. Some tend to this kind of disorder. In my case, it could be the NBA for a lot of years, the Olympic Games in problematic schedules or the endless games to Football Manager crossing early morning. In other cases, no excuse is needed: it is worth the television or some other shit. Getting used to seeing dawn is easier than it seems, although from time to time you ask why, and why hurt.
But nothing happens. Most of the time, just as it arrives, it happens. The World Cup will end and we will channel towards another less absurd and healthier dynamic, and we will fulfill. Of course, we will not say it, but some morning we will also miss it.
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