A few days ago, I was forced to have a conversation that contained absolutely no sport. It lasted an entire TEN minutes.

It was with a family friend and they just went on and on.

Desperately, I tried to steer the conversation back onto something sport related.

My mind worked hard to see an opening to introduce Manchester City’s purchase of Melbourne Heart or the upcoming Nadal v Federer match at the Australian Open.

The problem was, no opportunity presented itself. This family friend just kept pouring out sentence after sentence, while I nodded at the appropriate moments.

Turn’s out, introducing Colin Garland’s knee injury as a conversation topic is not always seamless.

While I pretended to listen, I was getting angrier by the minute.

Deep down, I knew whose fault it was that I was trapped in this social hell.

It was the AFL’s.

See, if the footy were back, we would have spoken about that first. We wouldn’t have made it onto another topic.

AFL is my social lifejacket and shield.

While cricket provides some respite over summer from non-sporting social interactions, once The Ashes was decided the enthusiasm of many waned.

What’s that you say? Tennis?

Well, it’s ok but it hardly foolproof.

Especially, since the Aussies seem to exit faster than Graeme Swann mid-tour.

This is how most discussions about the Australian Open usually go:

Me: Did you watch the tennis last night?

Other: No.

When Channel Seven bombards me with their promos for ‘After the tennis,’ all I think is ‘after the tennis is AFL. Why would I watch these other shows?’

The wasteland that is conversation outside of the AFL season is scattered with the worst topics in history, politics and what ordinary people have been doing.

What’s more, the once reliable St Kilda Football Club has gone missing this offseason, leaving us free of controversy.

Jake King meeting with bikies? Please, that happens so regularly you can set your watch to it.

We need footy back.

Even as I write this, people are trapped listening to someone bang on about the need to invest in public transport or retelling the plot to Gravity.

Thankfully, my conversation wound up naturally, with me finding an appropriate point to mention I was late for a meeting.

A few days later the same family friend rang to say the shadow on their x-ray turned out to be nothing.

So, turns out that ten minutes really was a waste of time.