Gridiron Belles

Going on a date with someone under false pretenses is perhaps one of the most frightening of all circumstances in the dating world.

Spending an entire date nodding your head, mindlessly agreeing or feigning interest about a topic that you simply loathe, is worse.

I’ll spare you the etiquette rules of dating conversation. Suffice it to say, if the conversation is so one-sided that the prominent feeling you are experiencing is nausea from head nodding, not butterflies in your stomach, there are bigger issues to be addressed. But I digress…

“Help! He thinks I like football!” Was the subject line of an e-mail I received from my darling sister. Before I even opened up the body of the message, I had a huge grin on my face. My sister was panicking and realizing that she should have listened to me for the past decade as I tried to teach her how to “talk football” with eligible suitors.

Of course, this is my wing-belle we are talking about, so while I am laughing at the situation, I am not taking it lightly and immediately delve into her recount of why her upcoming blind date was already doomed. The trepidation in her every sentence was only going to be mitigated by a long distance call.

Without a “hello” I was bombarded with bits and pieces of a hilarious story. To me, anyway. “Last week, I was doing YOU a favor, and telling my friend about YOUR book!” (I didn’t even have time to say thanks before…) “The next thing you know, she’s telling me about some handsome guy she wants me to go out with.” (So far, this is all very good. Book promotions and a date for Sis.)

“Do you know what happened??!!” (She asked as if I had planned to sabotage her potential date.) “ My friend called me to tell me he was excited to meet me because she thought that I was the one who wrote YOUR book and (insert a long unintentional dramatic pause—the heart of the matter was about to surface) that I was the one who liked football!”

There was no more excitement in her voice. Her last words trailed off as if she was reading her own sentence to be guillotined.

Oh dear, I thought. This really has taken a turn for the worse… But, again, I inserted an inappropriate laugh. Because well, this was quite comical!

Before I could rectify the situation, I needed to know three things:

1) Who is his team?   Kentucky Wildcats

2) Have you picked an SEC team yet?   No, but I’ve been thinking about that…

3) How much time do we have? The date is tomorrow.

Individuals like my sister cannot be made up. They are sweeter than south Georgia sweet tea so it’s a crime not to help them. Especially in the name of love. And SEC football.

Solution: I made her a cheat sheet that included questions to ask him about UK football that had nothing to do with the actual game of football…which so viscerally annoys my sister:

“Who does he usually go to the games with?” “What’s his gameday ritual?” “How many years has he been going to UK games?” “Does he have season tickets?” “Does he like going to Keeneland before a night game?” “What’s his favorite memory from a game?”

You see, the answers to these questions provide insight to the type of person this guy is, his friendships, his morning routines, his level of commitment, etc., without talking Xs and Os or allowing him to show off how many hours of SportsCenter he watches. This, is a Belles dream come true.

Men are simple creatures—as long as they THINK they are talking about football and not showing you insight into their heads and emotions, they’ll keep talking. And apparently this guy had lots of non-football-football things to say!

So yes, I have a sister who has no interest in the game of football. But she’s the greatest wing-belle there ever was so I don’t mind a bit.

Xs and Os,

Christie Leigh

Post Script: To come full circle with the story, my sister has narrowed down her teams to Alabama, Ole Miss and Kentucky. Right now, Ole Miss is in the lead only because “it’s the fanciest.” It’s our goal to have her committed to one team before kickoff of this year’s season.

The date apparently went well and she carried her own with the football conversation. She immediately enlightened him- “Just so you know, I don’t like football. I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t want to know anything about it…” Because she wanted to know about him, however, she did use the questions above to gain some insight. Turns out, he fell hook line and sinker for the non-football-football questions and she learned more than she imagined and actually ended up enjoying the company of this gridiron-loving Kentucky fan.

It didn’t turn out to be a match made in heaven, but it sure did teach me a lesson. (Yes, she taught me a lesson in football.) Football conversations don’t have to all be about Xs and Os, wins and losses and comparing national titles and Heisman winners. SEC football is about the people off of the field—maybe or maybe not—interested in the team on the field.