Ryan 
Have a question for Ryan? Write into Dear Ryan using the Contact Us form on our website or through his email: ryanm21@illinois.edu
This Dear Ryan is a double Dear Ryan! The first one is a V-day special, while the second is a more typical advice exchange.
Dear Ryan,
Met at the house show.
Why don’t you have instagram.
See you on Linkedin.
Sincerely,
Interested
Dear Interested,
Canadian Tux,
All blue, except for the shoes,
The shoes were very red.
Cheers,
Ryan
Now, time for classic Dear Ryan! This one is really good.
Dear Ryan,
How are you doing man? I freaking love your column its the highlight of likesy(?) whenever it omes out and it has not come out in like a while so anyway it would be sick of you were able to answer my question yo. Anyway like I love sports I grew up watching the bears and the sox and I’m also a huge fan of the bulls. I always rep my teams and I love posting the scores of the game on my instagram sory. Those stories always get mad impressions and like it is awesome. Recently, I been getting into like gambling a little bit. I just love to put a couple bucks on the game cuz then I can use my elite ball knowledge to make W bets. Its so gnarly to place an 8 legger cuz the payout is like 5k from $10. I always slide my picks in the GC before I pick them and my boys always send W reactions to the bets. But, lowkey I keep losing all my money cuz of the refs and Courtland Sutton. Ok yap sesh over, basically, why aren’t my friends dropping me from gambling? Like they are enabling me to lose a ton of money. Pretty soon I’m gonna have to sell El Cinco. Do I need better friends?
Thanks in advance,
Parlayed
Dear Parlayed,
You’ve certainly come to the right place for relevant advice. Coming from someone who’s had to run the dreaded ‘milk mile’ largely because the studly Denver Broncos beanpole Courtland Sutton decided to score 0 fantasy football points in week 7 of the regular season, I’m a qualified candidate when the criteria is betting on the losing horse. Although the rest of my team was also pretty scrappy, I like to use Courtland Sutton as a scapegoat because of his silly name. And frankly, I would have it no other way. You develop a sense of camaraderie with these multi-millionaire athletes, and as my roommates like to say: “I’m building a family, not a team”. Quite simply, betting on players or even game outcomes is an extension of these mystical para-social relationships that have become a cultural staple in these unprecedented times.
When your typical NFL game consists of 33% advertisements (oftentimes the same ads are run weekly, ironically many of them advertising sports gambling), one must take matters into their own hands to make the game bearable to watch. When you’ve got money on the line, even having ludicrous odds can turn a pigskin snoozefest into a dopamine-surged frenzy. And you dig it. This same logic can be applied to slot machines: while they’re admittedly excessively flashy and shallow, the element of having a chance of profit flips a switch in our monkey brains and makes us sit there for hours and hours like some sort of primitive caveman (picture Gollum from Lord of the Rings. You nor I have ever seen or read it, but the imagery works). However, unlike slot machines, sports betting can often be a sort of special social ritual (you mentioned your “GC” and “W pick” interactions with your mates). Because of this, the logical conclusion is that even if you’re down in the hole, there is still a certain level of utility to be gained even when you lose a bet that was probably doomed from the start. Win or lose, no one can deny that you tried. When done right, sports betting is a bonding experience in the same fashion of sharing a family meal or borrowing clothing from a friend (or stealing if your name is David Hipp) - it brings people together.
I could provide you with some methods for coping with your monetary loss, but you already seem to have adopted the strategy of blaming the referees or blaming the playcalling or blaming Las Vegas or simply blaming the Man. The glaring fallacies of these strategies aside, I ultimately hold sports gambling in high esteem. Especially when it’s other people doing the betting - doesn’t everyone get some sort of twisted high from observing the manic highs and depressive lows of their peers? If your friends aren’t pushing you to your absolute limit, are they even your friends? You say they’re enabling you, but how can you be sure they aren’t empowering you? Is it better to live insane and happy, or live sane and dull?
I leave you with a timely and I daresay cute poem delivered to me in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish:
“Star-light, star-bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might. Have this wish, I make tonight."
Another tidbit from the wise sage Don Quixote:
“Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”
Wishing you glitz and glamour,
– Ryan M
Why You Should Be Very Nice to Me, an Introspective