Bullington’s Guide to Balancing Women and Sports

By: Bruce Bullington, GreensboroSports.com staff writer

It was like something out of a bad situation comedy. I didn’t think people like this really existed. I know now, however, that they do. Who am I talking about? The anti-sports girlfriend.

This summer, a friend of mine dated a woman who seemed perfectly rationale….at first. He’s a pretty big sports fan so he tries to be very upfront with women about his level of obsession with sports. Well, after the initial courting stage was over, she went about the futile process of attempting to broaden his horizons. What this really meant was getting him to stop liking things he liked and doing things she wanted.

He tried compromising.

He went to fancy restaurants, weddings, concerts. For him, this was pretty earth-shattering stuff. However, since an evening at home watching reruns of the 2004 World Series of Poker still sounded more like a good time than waiting an hour for a table at the Olive Garden, to her he was a no-class crumb-bum. They would have pretty nasty arguments about sports and their relative importance. On the day of the 7th game of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Hurricanes and the Edmonton Oilers, he was a nervous wreck. He also made the mistake of saying that this would probably be the biggest day of his entire life. This led to a tear-filled diatribe about how could he say that meeting her wasn’t the biggest day of his life (as if!) and a bunch of other estrogen-filled nonsense. Needless to say, their relationship died a slow, painful death.

Don’t get me wrong. I know there are more important things in life than sports. Or, should I say, there are some things in life more important than some sports. For the benefit to the dozens of women who read greensborosports.com on a daily basis, let me explain. There is a sliding scale of how important a sporting event is relative to what demands you, as a woman, are making. For example, if you’re whining about wanting to go see “The Lake House” with the handsome and talented Keanu Reeves and his favorite baseball team, who’s already fifteen games out, is playing the Devil Rays, the choice is clear. He should bite the bullet and head down to the Carmike. However, if you’re cousin, who you see once every-other-Christmas is getting married on the same day as the State-Carolina football game, guess what? Don’t even ask. Rivalry football game trumps distant relative’s wedding.

For easy reference, here is a good guide for whether the man in your life is being unreasonable in choosing sports over whatever it is you’re nattering on about:

Regular season ACC basketball game > Watching Lord of the Rings DVD

Going to dinner on a Friday night > Regular season baseball game against non-rival

Two top ten teams football teams playing in primetime > playing 80’s Trivial Pursuit with the neighbors

Reruns of televised poker > Just sitting around talking

And if we’re talking about the post-season and it’s his favorite team in it, here are events that you will need to drag him away from the television:

Childbirth (yours, and hopefully his)

Imminent death (yours, his, your parents or his parents)

Hmmmm, yeah, that just about covers it. I know this column comes off as just another lame “Men are from Mars” type of column that hacks like Dave Berry have been cranking out for years. However, I’ve never seen any of these people actually lay out a simple, practical formula for determining whether or not to open your pie-hole.

Basically, the bigger the game, the bigger the reason you need to pry him away. You can send all the thank-you letters to bruce@greensborohockey.com. And you’re welcome.

3 thoughts on “Bullington’s Guide to Balancing Women and Sports

  1. Excellent article, and I believe quite accurate, including the last part. I painfully realized the point you are making when my team was heading to overtime in the final game of the season for a playoff spot as I was heading out the door for a New Years party I didn’t really want to go to in the first place! I bit my tounge and it worked out pretty good because I don’t think I could have handled that heartbreak anyway. What do you think Dr Bullington? Do you think a non-playoff “playoff” game trumps a new years party we had already planned to go to? Anyway I really enjoyed the article and think you bring up good points. It would be like a guy trying to drag his wife away from Oprah to go to a football game. The only difference is that a guy number one doesn’t really care, and number two knows better in the first place.

  2. While I think it would great to find a woman who loved going to and watching sporting events, I would say most guys would rather their wife/girlfriend stay home. After watching your team give up a late go ahead touchdown is probably not the best time for a woman to ask you something like, “Why do you take this so hard or It is not really that big a deal is it?” If it was not that “big of a deal”, I would probably not be a deep shade of red and using words that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. Women don’t like seeing their men like this and their “efforts” to reason with you or make you feel better only serve to make matters worse.

  3. Marshall,

    This is a pretty easy call. If your favorite team’s season is on the line, it’s a must-see. Especially when the option is being on time for a New Years Eve party. As long as you made it before midnight, you’d be alright.

    Rookie mistake. It happens. You got lucky and your team lost anyway, although I’m sure you must have considered the possibility that they would have won if you had just stood by them in their moment of need.

    Of course we’ll never know, but that’s something you now have to learn to live with.

    Good luck to you.

Comments are closed.