If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ll know about my aversion to physical activity.

If you thought I liked sport, then you must not know me very well.

I enjoy my regular visits to the gym – don’t get me wrong. I also occasionally sit down and enjoy watching an AFL match. I even used to play sport on Saturdays during Secondary School – but only because it was compulsory. This year, I really got into the Australian Open. Like, I reaaaally got into it. Didn’t actually go though.

I hate, however, watching cricket. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. I used to regularly wag PE at school. Only on incredibly rare occasions have I engaged in team sports willingly. Swimming at school was the bane of my teenage existence. I can barely hit a tennis ball to save my life, and if you asked me to play volleyball I’d laugh like a maniac.

Think I’m incredibly un-Australian? Whatever. There’s so much more to this country than sport.

I was very happy to read an article recently in The Age, from an author who shares my sentiments. Her hatred seems a little more marked than I (I do occasionally enjoy sport, she seems to never enjoy sport), yet I have to agree with her on most things.

In particular, how much money sports people are paid, and how ridiculous that is. And of course, how men get paid so much more than women for it. I mean, if our netballers are fighting for a pay rise from $10 000 to $25 000 (i.e. a pittance), and yet footballers are paid at least four times that… something is wrong.

But I digress.

When I was younger, I was a dancer. I started ballet at the age of 3 or 4. At my peak, I was doing about 4 or 5 various dancing classes a week. I was flexible, agile, and fairly coordinated.

Ask me to kick a football though, and it’ll go somewhere – though not where I was aiming. I can barely hit a tennis ball, hardly aim a soccer ball or a hockey puck. I’m not agressive in sport, nor am I particularly fast.

I have been an asthmatic my whole life, which never helped, and possess inexplicably stiff muscles. My muscles don’t just ‘move’ on command like everyone else’s seem to.

I also hate feeling incapable.

As a relatively intelligent and lucid human, anything that makes me feel less capable or intelligent drives me mad. I become spiteful when I can’t get the hang of a card game.

I hate feeling useless, and therefore avoid anything that makes me feel that way. Don’t get me wrong, I like to try new things, just not sports.

And so I spent my high school career avoiding PE lessons, or barely trying if I did attend.

“Why don’t you just try?” my classmates would ask.

Looking back, as an adult, I also realise that the way schools deal with girls and sports is completely wrong sometimes. I read another (more academically-based) article on girls and physical activity that appeared in The Conversation a short while ago. Now this is a whole other kettle of fish – one I’ll probably rant about in another blog post.

But despite my feelings, as outlined above, I really wish I was cool and cool wear this whole ‘sports chic’ look. Trainers, caps and baseball tees are everywhere. I want in on it for some reason – though it’s completely not me.

It’s probably half because you have to be model thin to look good in clothes like these… but also because as I’ve explained above, the whole ‘athletic’ and ‘carefree’ thing has just never been part of my life. And maybe that’s what you need to rock Nike runners or New Balance trainers with a dress; a Céline rugby top or a flat cap…

So yes, I will wear converse and a baseball cap. But no, I will not pick up a bat and hit a home run. Both because I don’t want to, and I can’t.

All images via Jak & Jil, most can be found on my Pinterest. Top image via Diamond Streets.