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The calendar doesn’t say it, but if you’re like me and the seasons change based on Instagram pictures, the disappearance of crying babies and beaches with captions about being #blessed with “summer families” means summer is officially over. If you’re a girl, that means you’re starting to get a craving for a pumpkin spiced boyfriend (or a boyfriend covered in pumpkin spice). That’s completely normal. The summer is an easy time to be free and single. You have weekends that are preplanned with late arrivals back to your place on Sunday. This means there is minimal time to sit with the lights off wondering why your pillow won’t cuddle you back. You had a boyfriend and his name was Rosé. He was sweet and just tart enough to be sassy. You bragged about him to friends like nobody else knew who he was. He came with you everywhere and looked really good in pictures. He was a nice summer fling, but you know it’s over. You’ll look pretty ridiculous on Thanksgiving bringing home Jose–I mean Rosé. Whatever. So it’s fall, you need a boyfriend before winter comes, and all your cute clothes stop fitting because they “shrunk in the wash.” What to do?
If you’re reading PGP, you’re probably either in your twenties, my parents, or old divorced guys who wear the shirts with paisley under the cuffs and have a new girlfriend you can’t communicate with. You’ve watched enough NBC Thursday night sitcoms about people our age to think that the next step in life is to have one of your friends fix you up. Let me inform you, only three people want to set you up: parents with 22-year-old kids still on their cell phone plan, barren women with nieces and nephews, and this child molester. Other than that, nobody else really WANTS to set you up. I’ll get asked from time to time by girlfriends if I have any single friends. That’s really tough. It’s like asking if I have any guys I can avoid bringing near them six to eight months from now. The reason your friends don’t want to fix you up isn’t because you’re not good looking or fun, but because it probably won’t work out and pre-relationship you isn’t fun to hang out with. You’re asking questions about the friend and if he’s into it. You’re constantly checking his claims–you Gchat me wondering if “he gets tired a lot,” as I try to find an alcohol that can black me out in one shot. And honestly, your friends have their own shit to deal with. They want boyfriends or jobs or their boyfriend to stop signing into Tinder “as a joke,” so you’re going to be on your own.
That’s why I’m going to give you some advice: go watch some football. I know you just let out an eyeroll/scoff combo that’s usually meant for Internet fitness models and their quotes. If I was a girl, I wouldn’t want to go watch a football game, either. Guys are truly at their worst. We get so hammered and talk so loudly that you start to think we might be deaf. We get mad at players who are athletically superior about how we would have done their jobs. We eat foods by the handful that you didn’t even think could be eaten by a handful. We fart and burp and pick our nose like the bar is an extension of our gross bathroom. We say the word “fantasy” a vagina-drying amount of times. It’s not a fun experience, and I can’t imagine how much worse it is when you’re being hit on: some dude confidently screaming, “What’s up?” from his wing sauce-soaked lips as he looks over your shoulder every three seconds to catch a score. No thanks. Telling you a bar showing football is the best place to meet a guy is like saying they’re giving away French Bulldogs at Michael Vick’s house.
But a football game will offer something that’s pretty valuable: honesty. No website can tell you if the other guys in his profile picture are tools (look for the guy who calls Tom Brady “Tom,” “Tommy,” or “Thomas,” like he’s his son). No guy will write in his bio that he claps at a TV really hard because he imagines his dad’s face in his hands. The football game gives you a venue to see who can “hang.” No matter if you’re a guy or a girl, everyone during the fall is looking for someone who can “hang.” A guy who can drink without turning into a dick that Jezebel will someday write about. A girl who can seamlessly work her way around a bar during a football game she doesn’t care about. A guy who understands the “no touching after a big meal” rule. A girl who won’t say, “I don’t do shots before nine.” And all of these hangable qualities get tested during a football Sunday. Fall has arrived and winter is on its way. Netflix binges, sweatpants, and dimly lit apartments are approaching and a football game is the perfect place to find that last supply needed for the hibernation. Get a group of girls. Go to a bar for a game. I promise Rosé will be waiting for you in the spring.
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JTrain
Jared Freid is a NYC based comedian. He has been featured on Tru TV's "NFL Full Contact" and more recently on MTV's "Failosophy." He is also a writer for The Huffington Post, The Fan Hub, Weekly World News, TotalFratMove, BroBible, and HeTexted. If you're not the reading type, Jared created the "Frat Dude Goes To" series where he travels the country interviewing "Bros" at wild events like the Carolina Cup and the AVN Awards. Follow him on twitter @JTrain56 for all of his weekly content.
@JTrain56
“A guy who can drink without turning into a dick that Jezebel will someday write about.”
JTrain slipping a prediction for his future in there. Nice. Quality article as always.
If only more ladies would heed your advice…. If a 6 would actively watch the game with me (or at least pretend) could treat me like dog shit and I’d still think they are an 8.
But I SWEAR to GOD if you tell me I should own a player on my fantasy team because you find him “hot”, or if the players can see the yellow first down marker too, or that you like Carolina because of that one time you went to Charleston with your BFF….. I’ll order a shot of Clorox and kill myself.
Go Cocks.
Someone has been burned before.
Wait, am I picturing my dad in between his hands now, or what?
Or, you could do the same on Saturday, because people care way more about their alma mater’s football team than their favorite NFL team, and you can be hungover on a Sunday instead of a Monday. Also, you won’t hear fantasy football talk.
People who live in states where professional teams exist, or states other than Mississippi, actually do prefer NFL to NCAA. Shocking, I know.
Living and growing up in Dallas, I would disagree. If you went to a college worth rooting for, you can’t even compare the experiences. Good college blows NFL out of the water as far as the overall experience, but NFL has the edge over mediocre college.
My entire family is from New Orleans, and Ole Miss is by far bigger in our family. You can actually be a part of your university, whereas you’ll always be just a fan of your NFL team