My Complicated Relationship With Football Season

Glory Days.

My first (ok, only) serious boyfriend was the quarterback and captain of our high school football team (#humblebrag). Despite wearing his jersey to school every Friday (a tradition, might I add, that I invented 9 years ago and is still in practice today) and going to his games every Saturday for 4 seasons, football was never really my "thing." I much preferred arriving an two hours late with chic Northface fleece and a hot chocolate and gossiping with the other football girlfriends until the game was over than actually watching what was happening on the field. Every once in a while, I would shout "YAY BILLY!" to prove I was paying attention (and to inevitably receive dirty looks from his entire family)— regardless of whether or not he was on the field.

Now, I'm seeing a guy who is obsessed with Fantasy Football (and, as my mom and 4-year-old nephew would be pleased to know, is a nice Jewish boy). I didn't see him for a week when the draft was going on (partly because he was "studying" the league, partly because I'd acted batshit crazy the weekend before) and he is constantly updating me on how his (multiple) teams are doing. He's great, but between that and the intricacies of his finance job I rarely understand 100% of what he's talking about. But I'm trying, I swear. 

The only picture that exists of me in a
football jersey is from 2006.

The thing is, I genuinely like the act of watching football. Between the beer, the burgers and Tom Brady's crooked smile, what's not to like? Sidebar Sundays are jam packed with cute guys, and Giants' Games make fantastic  backgrounds for Instagram photos. The issue, though, is that I just don't like the actual football itself.

Trust me, I've tried. It would make me sound so much cooler on first dates if I knew AT ALL what I was talking about and could say with authority that "Gronk" made a "great play!" or that the Patriots are "my" team. I would love to get excited when a team "goes all the way," (is that right?) but to me, Super Bowl Sunday is just an excuse to eat my friend Mar's buffalo chicken dip and cry at Budweiser commercials.

This season, it unfortunately doesn't look like things are going to be any different

Last night, in honor of opening night, I put on my favorite MOSES BROWN FOOTBALL sweatshirt, ordered chicken wings from Seamless (ok, it was organic grilled chicken and brussel sprouts from Westville) and watched 3 episodes of Friday Night Lights.

Go Pats!

(My relationship with football is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that this post, which was meant to be about football, is mostly just about guys I've dated).