Football is terrible for many reasons. Trying to watch a game is literally the same thing, to me, as watching static on the TV — you see shit moving around, and you hear noises, but they don’t actually mean anything. The season lasts forever, and for some reason, there’s a game, like, every day, even though everyone pretends it’s just a Sunday affair. The only appropriate thing to drink when you’re watching is beer and you look more out of place than you feel if you grab a Crystal Light and vodka. People get annoyed with you if you ask questions to try to understand what’s going on, they judge you if you just pretend to know what’s going on, and they scorn you if you openly admit you don’t give a flying fuck what’s going on. There’s no winning.
And this weekend, all the terribleness of this year’s terrible sport finally comes to an end at the Lady Gaga concert with some football before and after it. It’s the Super Bowl — a game I look forward to getting through all year, because as soon as it ends, so does football season, and once again, you’ll have a few months of peace.
Unfortunately, though, to get to the end of the season, you have to get through the game. This is truly the one day of the year when it pays to have absolutely zero regular male attention, because it won’t feel any different for you. But if you have so much as a crush on someone, this day will be brutal.
The game doesn’t start until *looks up what time the Super Bowl starts* 5:30 (Central, so as early as 3:30 on the west coast), and you will mistakenly think this means you’ll have several hours of attention before the festivities begin. Wrong. So wrong. He’ll wake up at noon, like it’s Christmas morning, and already be behind on his drinking. So when you send him your “look how cute and cuddly, but also you can kind of see my nipples” good morning snap, it will be opened, and ignored for at least an hour, as he is busy blowing up the group text with when and where they will begin the pounding of beers.
During this time, you will need to distract yourself. Take a shower — hell, even wash your hair! It’s been a few days. Just start applying makeup to your face. And by the time you’re finally able to check your phone again, he will have responded with something that lets you know he thinks you’re hot, but also, that he has no interest in maintaining a conversation with you right now. DO NOT RESPOND A SECOND TIME. Play it cool.
From there, make your buffalo chicken dip and foolishly convince yourself he will view you as a domestic goddess for showing up to the party with the literal same dish that every basic bitch has made at Super Bowl parties throughout the country every year for the past 10 years. Imagine your life together. Picture how grateful he will be when you’re so nurturing that you instinctively bring him a beer. He’ll thank you, and make a comment to his friends about how he lucked out with you. Listen for wedding bells. And then be prepared to have all that come to a screeching swerve when none of it happens.
In reality, the best you can hope is that yours is the buff chicken dip that gets served hot. It won’t be. Your interactions with your man, the whole reason you came to this stupid party, will be limited and frequently interrupted. He’ll pretend to listen to you occasionally, because he’s a good guy, but will still quite literally shove you out of the way, screaming at the TV when something happens. You’ll be unsure if you should even finish your sentence by the time he calms back down. You shouldn’t. Just slip away and take the L. Make awkward conversation with the other girls who thought they’d get brownie points for showing face, and just get drunk enough to numb the pain.
Don’t refill his beer. That’s a tryhard move, and you’ll feel disappointed when he doesn’t immediately ask you to be his girlfriend after you do so. Trust.
You think, after all these hours you put in, not bitching, not distracting him, and just existing in an environment that isn’t really your scene, you will surely be rewarded. Once all the hooplah comes to an end, he’ll be yours once more. The game ends, and you can finally get your much-needed validation.
No. Wrong again. At this point, he will either be so hyped up that he can’t focus on little old you, or so bummed out that he can’t focus on you. And in either case, he will be bonding with his friends over it, emotionally recovering, and so liquored up that you’re turned off by the smell of booze radiating off of him.
My advice is this: do not sit around waiting for him to pay attention to you once the game ends — not even for a goodbye. That’s a sad, last-ditch effort to get him to go home with you, and even if you make that happen, you won’t feel like you’ve won, because you still came in second place to a bunch of men in tights. You know he’d rather be with them. Leave when it’s time to leave and let him have this moment with his friends, because his penis, likely won’t be working anyway. Don’t be one of the last people there. In fact, leave early, and head to a bar. If you must, shoot him a text thanking him for the invite and let him know where you’re headed, but don’t get mad if he doesn’t immediately ditch his friends to come meet up with people who don’t want to talk about the only thing he’s cared about all year.
If he wants to see you, he’ll likely ask where you want, but don’t get your hopes up. Just wait until he texts you in the morning, because he will text you in the morning. And once he does, it will be better than before. Because you’re his number one now, and you won’t have to hear a word about football for the next six months.
Sports!.
Image via Shutterstock
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at [email protected]
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