Fantasy Football Week 4: Tell Your Significant Other To Shut Their Yap

This is going to sound extremely sexist and insensitive to the opposite sex…because it is.

Gentleman, if you have a wife, girlfriend, and/or any other brand of significant other, trying to intercede on your fantasy football experience, it’s time to break out the “pimp hand” and tell them to shut. Their. Respective. YAPPER!  

Anyone preventing you from enjoying fantasy sports probably just needs a hobby of their own. If they had something to do, they wouldn’t have time or need to concentrate on your actions.

Guys, we’ve all had th below conversation: (for sake of this piece we’ll call her…Strawberry)

RCZ: Yeah, let’s grab dinner sometime

Strawberry: That sounds great, I’d love to catch up with you, how about Saturday?

RCZ: Ohhhh…. Saturday afternoon is kind of bad, I really look forward to the Michigan-Michigan State game every year… This year it’s going to be EPIC

Strawberry: What? Really? Why don’t you just DVR it?

RCZ: Well… I don’t have DVR, but even if I did… it just doesn’t work for me

Strawberry: Come on Ryan! Are you really blowing ME off for FOOTBALL!?

RCZ: How about Thursday night?

Strawberry: Must see TV!? Parks & Rec, the Office, 30 Rock…I love me some Tina Fey, you know this…

RCZ: Well, what about Wednesday night?

Strawberry: Umm…Hello…Dancing With the Stars!?

It’s early into the football season and I’ve had this conversation already at least a half dozen times. With people that know me, and where I stand when it comes to sports consumption. Some things are negotiable and some aren’t.

In August of 2008, a self righteous feminist actually created a website titled Women Against Fantasy Sports (WAFS). It features pictures of women selling underwear that says “closed for this fantasy season” across her naughty bits and shirts that say “I thought I was your fantasy”, all intertwined with the audacity to refer to themselves as “fantasy widows.”

Wow.

It also encompasses a message board with tales about plans to ruin their husbands’ draft and sob stories about how said draft is ruining their life.

Boo-bleeping-hoo.

To be fair, too much of anything is bad, but it seems to me there is a gender inequality issue when it comes to hobbies.

In my 29 years on this planet, not once have I criticized a female’s right to have interests. I’ve never ONCE heard a buddy complain “yeah, my girlfriend watches too much American Idol and just doesn’t have time for me anymore…Wednesday’s are a wash out” or “she just spends so much time making pottery sculptures…I don’t know what to do with MYSELF…”

It has never happened.

Dudes across the country are quite familiar with an hour of freedom during Monday Night Football…it’s called Gossip Girl.

There’s something about this push and pull I’ve never been able to comprehend. Why can’t fantasy football be appreciated by significant others? It’s a hobby that involves sports, math, male bonding and other social activities in similar fashion to a book club.

But, book clubs garner respect.

Can you honestly tell me every choice in book is better and more dignified than the choice of Drew Brees against the first rated Jets defense angry and on the prowl or Brett Favre, at home against a Detroit Lions team he’s 18-0 against lifetime in said situation, but 0-2 this season looking like any ol’ 40 year-old gunslinger from a Wrangler jeans ad?

I have many friends and even family members I’d never hear from if it weren’t for fantasy sports.

All too often this hobby gets linked to caveman ritualistic tendencies, like a bunch of guys sitting on rocks burping, farting and drooling over women they can’t have. There is plenty of that, but what gets lost is fantasy football guy that has it down to an art on Excel spreadsheets with colors, tabs, and formulaic quotients.

How is that not sexy? If a man poured that kind of effort into a seemingly meaningless, yet necessary task at work—women would label him adorably passionate.

A guy that works hard enough to be successful in fantasy sports, obviously has worked hard to keep said female around. If she has that much of a problem, she should move on. Everything in life boils down to a bottom line of competition, red or black, and of course supply and demand.

One of the biggest reasons for this gender battle between quality time and football time is the football games themselves take place on the weekend. So, naturally, there are going to be “hugely important” events like birthday parties, weddings, and family reunions planned during the games.

Your girlfriend might tell you to DVR the game and watch it later.

Here’s a viable solution with boatloads of logic and thought from someone who clearly hasn’t thought about the situation. Sports happen in real time and the news disseminates through male circles like a herpes outbreak.

When Korie Lucious hit a buzzer beater in the 2010 NCAA Tournament to beat Maryland—I received approximately 57 texts. When Jim and Pam had a baby in The Office—I received approximately zero texts.

TV Shows aren’t urgent news. You can talk about it tomorrow.

To ask someone to watch a sporting event that already happened at a “more convenient time” is essentially a request to drop into an Amish bomb shelter. Phones, televisions, scrolling scoreboards in Times Square and other corners of New York City quickly become the enemy.

Nothing like a night on the town, eh?

Ladies, it’s the equivalent of a dude knowing the sex and name of your best friends’ baby, and subsequently holding that pertinent information in an envelope for your eyes to see, yet…nooooo! Sorry.

Like having to pee really bad on a train that doesn’t stop for another hour—just try to think about something else.

It’s not easy.

Males respect passions, hobbies and/or interests far more than females do. A female representative knitting scarves in a cold, dark basement could not be reached for comment.

To be fair, there are small populations of ladies (approximately 15 percent according to WAFS) that understand and/or even participate in these activities. They are called…gems. If you’re a dude lucky enough to have hitched onto one of these gems, hang on tight, they are rare.

In fact if you’re one of those ladies right now and you find this column sexy, e-mail me. Just don’t expect a response during the Michigan State game.

Gentleman, keep your focus. While there are many sport seasons, fantasy football is clearly the most important and urgent, but it only takes place once a year. If Peyton Hillis is on the waiver wire (he’s available in 30 percent of ESPN leagues as I write this) and you have to cross enemy lines to get to the computer—take the risk.

Who knows, perhaps she’ll find something to do too.