Is there anything lonelier that being a Chicago Fire fan?
Sure.
Being a conservative in a liberal media town can be lonely, but the truth is I feel more love from lefty Twitter trolls than from those evil soccer haters who mock the Fire.
And I’ll tell that to Dan Proft’s soccer-hating face when I see him Friday on his AM 560 radio show, “Chicago’s Morning Answer.”
Breaking up with your girlfriend might make you feel lonely, but you know what? We Fire fans don’t care about your girlfriend.
We care about the Chicago Fire succeeding, but they’re not succeeding, and we fans are sad, like hopeful children who’ve been just been told the balloon man isn’t coming to the party because he died.
If you’re a Fire fan, you know the feeling, at least psychically.
Some excellent writers who knew nothing of Basti Schweinsteiger know the loneliness of the sort that afflicts the Fire fan.
“The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes,” wrote Nikolai Gogol, author of “The Nose” and other funny stories.
It sure is sad when we Fire fans see one another at SeatGeek Stadium, with the team sucking worse than a hungry old man without teeth.
We could all just as well be floating at night in the North Atlantic, having jumped off the Titanic. We lock eyes, knowing what comes next and what the Fire have done to us.
We’re ecumenical in our sadness: bearded progressive Bernie Bros, conservatives who shave every day and wear neckties to work, apolitical stoners, the Lithuanian guy who laughs at the cruelty of fate. We’re all together in gloom.
To be a Fire fan is to be a son (or daughter) of misery.
And still we care about our club. And every match day there is hope. We study the matchups, we ponder tactics, formations, which players are in form. We’re eager.
Then 90 minutes later, we just sit there, slumped in our seats, stunned at our own stupidity.
Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
There is no more pathetic team in Major League Soccer than our beloved Chicago Fire, with four measly victories, six draws and six losses.
The Fire were just eliminated from the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
There had been a chance for glory, for silverware, and not the fork they were about to stick in my eye. But our Fire were whipped, slapped, folded, shamed and scorned by a minor league team, St. Louis FC, by a score of 2-1.
All of Chicago would have been on pins and needles awaiting the outcome if Chicago gave two figs, which it doesn’t.
Fire head coach Veljko Paunovic, a good coach who is not giving into despair, was honest about the loss.
“We create a lot of opportunities,” Paunovic said, “we dominate, we don’t convert (score), and then on the first counter or first opportunity that our opponent has, we concede a goal.”
It is ever thus.
Even worse than the loss was our fine young player, Djordje Mihailovic, embarrassing himself by getting into a shouting match with a fan after the game. Fans were yelling at him, and he responded with a pithy invitation to “(do something to) yourself.”
Unfortunately, the provocateurs were taking video, as they always do, and they posted it, as they always do.
Djordje fully apologized. He’s angry and frustrated, which I’d rather see than a guy laughing and smiling after losing to St. Louis.
But there are worse troubles than Djordje’s temper.
The Fire allow too many goals, and they don’t score enough, even when goal-scoring opportunities are set like fat Calhoun County peaches on a plate for the once-competent Nemanja Nikolic, the 2017 Golden Boot winner.
Niko has had more quality scoring chances than every other forward in the league, and he can’t covert. If he had converted on just half of those quality chances, I wouldn’t have to write this, and Fire fans would be happy.
The defense is also disorganized, leaky and seemingly afraid. We’ve given up counting how many preventable goals have been let in due to idiotic mistakes. Against D.C. United, the Fire were up 2-0 but managed only a 3-3 draw. They should have won and picked up three points. And the same kind of defensive collapse happened against Orlando, New York City FC, LA Galaxy, Atlanta United and on and on.
Yet still we fans go to the games with hope in our hearts.
We’re pathetic, like Cubs fans of old, but without the lovable loser charm. What’s lovable about Bridgeview?
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more,’ ” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, who could have been a Fire fan.
“Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?”
Curse the demon? Maybe.
But as long as we get three points out of it, I’m good.
Come on, you Men in Red.
Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.
jskass@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @John_Kass
