Following my “Australian Women of the Night” post, an old high school friend reached out to give me the lowdown on his recent, very G-rated visit to Australia and New Zealand. Stan and his wife Bonnie spent an evening with Barb and me and passed on their recommendations about what to see and what to skip in the lands down under.
And then Stan asked the number one question people have been asking since I retired three months ago.
“Do you play Pickleball?”
My tennis player’s inherent negativity toward PB must have worn down because I said that while I had not yet played, I would be willing to give it a try. My former pathology associate, a woman who loves the game, had given me a PB set as a retirement gift so I was fully equipped.
At Stan’s advice I surfed through a few PB YouTube videos (there are about a million to choose from) and yesterday morning he and I met at 8 a.m. at the park district recreational center where he plays three days a week.
Stan spent 45 minutes very patiently coaching me. He did a great job going over the boundaries (all those extra lines painted onto what is also a basketball court can be confusing,) the scoring, and the strokes, reinforcing what I had learned watching the videos. Another relative newbie joined us and Stan gave her some much-appreciated tips too. Stan earned an A+ as a PB mentor.
We then joined in with other players for games on the three “easy” courts. For a first-timer I thought I did OK, making some rookie mistakes, but able to keep rallies going and win some points with a few well-placed shots.
And most importantly, every player I shared a court with was friendly and encouraging. Everyone that is, except for one person, one woman who we will call Jane. Jane wanted to teach me how to play but her condescending voice and manner were enough to guarantee that I did not listen to one word of what she said. Jane was a woman, but for the 10 minutes I had been with her, I had been mansplained.
Ladies of the world, I have new clarity on why you hate mansplaining–that tone of voice, the unnecessary commentary, the assumption of ignorance. It sucks and is demeaning.
It is possible that in the past I may have treated some women that way. Be it family, friends, readers, or co-workers, I apologize. I vow to do my best to never behave in that fashion to any person of any gender. If I slip up, please call me out on it. In a nice way.
Who’d have thunk it? Pickleball is not only fun, it is going to make me a better person!
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Thanks, Les. I’m sorry this happened to you, but I appreciate your mention that women can be just as condescending and assume just as much ignorance as men can. That makes a clear definition of “mansplaining,” rather than the frustrated “what men always do” that some women use as their definition. I’ve never found you doing this, by the way.
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Thanks, Margaret—I think in written work it is easier to avoid the condescending tone–I just hope it doesn’t slip out in real life!
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I definitely hear what you say and seen it not on the PB court, but seen it early on in my professional career. Fortunate not any more and certainly not on the PB courts as all suggestions came through as being very cordial.
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Hoping to have some Pickleball time with you in the future!
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