It sucks to be Graeme Smith

I've been sitting on this one for a while now, because the topic was blown out of proportion in another website but everywhere I go, every Graeme Smith related post seems to have some comment about his current girlfriend Brigitte Sarembock. But I finally decided to say something because, I wouldn't be me if I didn't share my opinion.

The most common words associated with Sarembock are 'plain' and 'ugly'. It bothers me every time not because I consider myself to be a moral police (not qualified, not pretending to be), but because I found it puzzling that so many people have the same line of thought regarding this person. Johan Botha's wife is not a model but no one calls her plain. So I was thinking and I realized that the problem is not the girlfriend, but rather the boy they are dating. Let's face it. Graeme Smith has a more aesthetic appeal to most girls than Johan Botha does. On top of that Brigitte Sarembock is not some super-model, she is an everyday person with an everyday job.

Brigitte is you, she is me, she is the girl next door. That means she is not in some out of touch fantasy league that celebrities are usually thought to be. And she is dating the national captain of South Africa. When people hear that they think, it could have been me. She hits too close to home and we don't like that. We like our celebrities to remain in some world which is not a part of our lives. This I think, is the problem that most people have with her. I wouldn't call it jealousy. Just the exposure of a hidden yearning to be known in this media-centric world.

But back to the subject, when Graeme Smith was dating Minki she was called too slinky and not worthy of the national captain. When Graeme Smith dates Brigitte, he is accused of having bad taste. When Graeme Smith is single, he is labelled gay. Then of course there are those of us who criticise him for being an unimaginative captain. Mostly justified, but a lot of times it's just plain bias. Man, it really sucks to be Graeme Smith.

I didn't write this to teach anybody anything. I wrote this to share my thoughts. This post by no means warrants any sort of derogatory comments on Brigitte or a brooding World War III. But yes, if you want to take a stab at Graeme Smith the cricketer, please go ahead. After all, criticism can only make him a better captain...one day!