This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, March, 2018
During any random day in any random bowling center at a very specific time (that being during open bowling), sociology enthusiasts can bear witness to the ridiculous resentment between two types of bowlers: those who take it seriously and those who don’t.
Or, rephrased from each opposing side, those who take it too seriously and those who don’t respect the game.
Because it’s open bowling, all levels of skill and passion are welcome. Tiny children rolling bowling balls down those weird dinosaur ramps and then running back to their parents without any care for the pinfall, having accomplished their goal of rolling the ball down the dinosaur’s back, can be placed right next to a highly competitive five-person team tuning up for their annual USBC Open trip.
Teens trying to impress their friends with how fast they can hurl a 6-pound ball down the lane can find themselves adjacent to a pro who rolls a 16-pound ball 20 miles per hour with 600 revolutions on it, which is objectively far more impressive.
One group is there to have fun while the other is there to get better. That’s not to say the fun group can’t accidentally get better or the serious group can’t accidentally have fun, but those are not their respective primary objectives.
Because of that, the groups resent each other.
While the serious group practices and attempts to work on a certain aspect of the game, they generally don’t want a hoard of screaming college kids to the right, rolling several balls simultaneously, at least two of which hit the rack, leading to one of the kids nonchalantly walking down to get the ball and collapsing on his face, lying there in hyperbolic laughter until an employee has to forcibly rectify the situation. While there is a bit of schadenfreude in it for the serious bowlers in the knowledge that kid will likely have elbow problems the rest of his life, it’s still not ideal.
Likewise, the screaming college kids don’t want some guy who isn’t even keeping score nearby, as the kids’ inherent decorum might force a twinge of necessity to not be as big of a spectacle as they’d like to be, thereby limiting their fun.
Even if that twinge exists, the guy practicing doesn’t perceive it, thereby loathing the lack of respect shown by the fun lovers.
Of course, proprietors want them all (assuming the fun group isn’t destructive). Everyone pays the same, although the serious players are more likely to have access to a discounted rate, and bowling-center staff will do their best to keep these groups separate, if open lanes allow it, as it maximizes the experiences for both groups.
Since most readers of this publication fall into the serious group, we can get introspective here. Some of us are completely immune to all of it, maybe even thriving off the distractions as an attempt to hone focus.
Others expect four-year-old birthday celebrants to have a deep understanding of one-pair courtesy and how last night’s rain will impact their pushaways.
Most of us fall between those extremes, possessing a ranking scale, even if subconscious, of what is tolerable and what isn’t. Perhaps a family bowling together and having fun is unobjectionable, but it becomes irksome when they begin rolling the ball between each other’s legs. Maybe it takes a little more to irritate you, such as a foul-line photo shoot, with teenagers loitering endlessly on the approach. Possibly, you need to witness blatant disrespect or obliteration of equipment to be annoyed.
The only thing of which we can be certain is that all the while, those fun-loving friends wish they could stay ahead of the moves like us. Their envy is more powerful than any of our irascibilities, and that is why practice is fun.