The Best Week Ever

As I awoke to the sounds of a Tivo taped episode of VH1’s Best Week Ever, which my television fixated boyfriend was watching at 8am on Saturday morning, one of the Best Week Ever salutes caught my attention. During a refreshing break from celebrity gossip, the show gave a shout out to all significant others of football fans, claiming that because the Super Bowl ended, the wives/ girlfriends of the football crazed men, had the best week ever. How clever I thought, finally someone can understand what I’ve gone through during the past 5 months living with an obsessive Packers fan.

The next day, while in the car headed to the mountains to climb with some of my girlfriends, I discovered I wasn’t the only neglected person during football season. Holly, one of my favorite climbing buddies dealt with an obsessive Browns fan, whereas Steph tolerated an infatuated Broncos fan. Equally odd though, was the fact that we had all just figured this out. The question was then not why does my husband/boyfriend love football so much, but rather why have we not called each other when this said neglect is going on? By the end of the car, we had it all figured out.

When our guys decide to partake in football watching, we have two choices; we can watch it with them or do something else. I’m sure many women decide to watch games, perhaps because they don’t mind, which eventually turns into an actual football fondness, but also, perhaps they want to please their man. What the 3 of us discovered, is that only on momentous occasions (i.e. Packers vs. Giants game in which I agreed to host a party at our house) did we sit down and watch a game with our beer guzzling, play grunting, TV glued men. Why? Because we took this time and made it our own. These 4-5 hour stints allowed each one of us to seize self indulged opportunities. Holly spent her time researching lobbyist groups (her career and passion), while Steph was able to escape to the gym. I, myself, spent a good portion of this past football season flipping through my favorite fashion magazines, without a sliver of remorse.

But alas, football season has ended and it’s time to go back to spending Sundays together again, or is it? VH1 is right – some significant others of football fans may have had the best week ever because they got to spend time with their long lost partners. I, on the other hand, had the best week ever because I continued to peruse my catalogs and magazines, indeed, leaving my boyfriend feeling ignored for several hours, just as I did in early September.