When I was growing up, I always considered myself to be an artsy type. Sure, I loved all things creative and artistic, but looking back, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn’t really fit in any other category. I wasn’t into science or math, and I wasn’t too sporty. Sure, I played sports, but I wasn’t really into them or good at them.

So I chose a label and stuck to it: an artsy kid. And with that label came rivalries with people of other labels.

I was raised in a sports-loving household. My parents were both into sports; my dad played football when he was young, was on the tennis team and still to this day plays tennis, and also played some baseball and was a softball coach up until this year.

Both of my siblings and I all played sports at some point when we were kids. I played a little bit of soccer and mostly softball, and my brother played baseball and some basketball, but eventually we both moved on to other things.

My sister is the sporty one. She’s played soccer, volleyball, and basketball, though softball is her #1 sport, currently playing on both her high school team and a travel team. Sports was all we really knew as kids. I felt it was one of the only extracurricular options offered to me.

So once I put down the sports mantle and chose a more artsy path, I felt like I had a feud with sports.

Every time someone mentioned sports, the instinct would be to scoff and make some sort of remark about how you didn’t care about sports, how more people should appreciate art. In my house growing up, I always felt unfairly biased against.

Sports always took priority, no matter what. I can’t count the number of times I was upset at my parents because they went to every single sports game, but it always seemed like a burden to get out to just one concert or show that I was in. I felt like they didn’t care or understand because they were sports people. And I held it against them and the rest of the world.

And it’s a thing, in the arts community, to hate on sports. As I grew older and started doing arts things in high school, there was this pent-up bitterness towards the sports community. Yes, considerably more funding goes towards sports while the arts are struggling for money, and fewer people go to see the arts as compared to sports, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy sports.

I felt like among the arts community whenever a sport was mentioned, it was only so that it could be mocked. “Sports? I don’t know any sports. What’s a sport?” And I will admit, I joined in for a while. I joined the sports hate because it was the thing to do. And I thought it was cool.

But then things changed. Sometime during my time in high school, I became a huge, rampant fan of some of my local professional sports teams, baseball and hockey in particular. I found myself swept up in it. And even though I was never good at sports myself, turns out I loved watching them. The excitement and the raw enthusiasm.

Unlike a movie, where you know what’s going to happen every time, in a game you never know what’s going to happen next. I found myself attached to the players and the culture, wanting to be out in that atmosphere as much as I possibly could. I found a new love.

Only problem was, I couldn’t find anyone else to share with it. All of my friends were arts people. They didn’t know anything about sports, especially the teams I liked.

In my arts groups, they continued to mock sports and how much undeserved attention it got, but I didn’t join in anymore. They didn’t understand. I couldn’t talk sports with anyone in that group, so I kept it hidden. I had my sports side of me, and my arts side. And they seemed incompatible with each other, unable to mix.

It goes the other way, too. If you go up to a group of jocks or big sports fans, they’re not likely to talk to you about movies or plays or your favorite nerdy thing. They might even make fun of you for it. There’s a lot of animosity between the two groups, when there really shouldn’t be.

Sports and arts are essentially trying to do the same thing. They’re there to entertain, to inspire, to fill a void, to be someone’s reason for continuing on.

Really, they’re not that different. Sports can inspire people and cities to come together (see the Boston Red Sox, Bruins, and New England Patriots after the Boston Marathon bombing, the Houston Astros after Hurricane Harvey, and the Vegas Golden Knights after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting), and all forms of art can inspire people to make a change or do something. The big differences is the cultures surrounding them.

The sports world is notoriously male-dominated, in participation, coverage, and fanbase. It can be guilty of toxic masculinity, and anything that is seen as “weak” or even “feminine” is mocked and shunned. But it’s not all bad.

There are more and more female sports reporters and commentators (The Washington Post has female reporters covering all four major DC sports teams), and women’s sports are gaining more traction (NCAA softball is annually covered extensively on ESPN, and the US Women’s National soccer and hockey teams have medaled in the vast majority of their major international competitions in their histories). With some effort, hopefully, some of this toxic masculinity can go away someday.

The arts is seen as a more feminine field. It’s not stereotypically tough, and they’re not life tracks recommended for people to choose despite the demand for art consumption. People labeled as “arts people” are seen in a specific way. You’ve probably stereotyped someone after finding out they were an actor, a singer, a painter, a graphic designer, a violinist, etc. Didn’t think they were serious enough, had their head up in the clouds, got too emotional about everything, weren’t good at other things.

People involved in the arts can be just as up on their high horses as sports people, perhaps even more so. There can be a tendency in the art world to think that you’re more important than any other field. But the arts are just as important as anything else, including sports.

I will absolutely admit that the arts don’t get enough credit, especially in the school funding department (go support the arts!). But that doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy both, and they definitely shouldn’t be afraid of openly liking both, as I’ve been. I share great enjoyment of both fields, but I’m afraid of them mixing. I’m afraid of what my arts friends will think if they see too much of my sports side. Will they think I’m crazy and stupid?

Will they laugh at me for getting emotional about my team’s win or loss, tell me “it doesn’t matter, it’s just a game,” even though it means more than that to me? And I’m afraid of my sports friends seeing too much of my artsy, nerdy side. Will they think I’m weird for the shows and movies I like and how much I like them? Will they judge all the posters in my room and all the merch that I own? It’s all ridiculous, because it’s all essentially the same.

There’s no reason for there to be so much hate between arts and sports, and it needs to stop. Let people enjoy what they like, despite your opinion on it. I want to be able to talk about the things I enjoy without the fear of whatever group I’m in judging me for it. Maybe it will take time or the right group of people, but there’s a balance in our culture somewhere, and we just need to find it.