The Great Football Idea - Post Mortem

Looks like the clothes are staying on till next season. Riigght...

No one thought it would ever happen. And they were right. For the completely wrong reasons.

If you remember, my friends and I at an ATL bar came up with a harebrained scheme early last year to recruit girls from bars and the internet to serve as hostesses for our football parties in the fall. In the early going the theory was that the recruiting would be the toughest part, but once the girls are in place... everything would be cake. In the worst case scenario, we would be shot down and gets some great laughs (and even segue into something better), and the best case scenario would be success. Never before have I seen so many guys afraid in the face of success.

The MySpace Group page took off... and there were enough girls who looked like they might actually do this thing. (We were only looking for a max of six. ) Same thing with the Craigslist.org stuff, Yahoo! Personals, and Meet Me @ Hot or Not sites. And that's when we started hitting snags. One guy, who had a big screen, took his condo out of the running for possible sites for the party. Another, his girlfriend had moved in and nixed his place as well. My water heater exploded from too much pressure from a water main and flooded most of my 1st floor. (Insurance didn't cover the damage, so I got raped as well as denied.) That left only one viable place in town that could support such a party, and thankfully he was still in - for the time being.

Thankfully, it was Dennis' idea in the first place to organize all this - so things were cool. That is until Dennis uncovered the phenomenon that is internet dating (just like Columbus discovered America... it was always there). Not only did he find girls who were willing to take their tops off just because we said so, the ones that weren't willing wanted to date him! So then we go from discussions of how many girls are on board to which girl called for phone sex. Others he met for actual dates - in addition to the MySpace girls we met out to discuss the proposition. Eventually this activity got out among his female friends - who then went on a hunt to find him a real girlfriend.

This particular move led to an interesting situation. While all this was going on, I was seeing a girl I met at a wine bar in Smyrna. She was a bit older and a recently divorced single mother - but I am a sucker for redheads. She also taught at the local college, so being able to discuss Style Guides and sex at the same time was kinda cool. Guess what pretty redhead English professor with cute glasses was talking to Dennis about the topless thing. Yeah, figures. I knew something was up when I sent her an email and hadn't heard back in a couple days - and then Dennis mentions the redhead on the Meet Me page. I go to verify, and then call her from Dennis' phone. Klassi. Apparently she wasn't serious about Dennis persay, but she wanted to play the field, after all she was recently divourced. This whole enterprise was starting to get weird.

While all this was going on, I was in and out of town for work, fencing, volunteer events, and other things - while other male members of the team were out when I was in town. So even if every man was on board - there were only 4-5 weekends in the regular season were we could assemble a full team (or even have the guys outnumber the topless girls). Finally, as bowl season (and our last chance) approached, I heard this line and many variations.

I gotta be honest. I was all for this whole deal when I knew there was no way in hell it would come together. Now that I know that it is going to happen, I am really scared. I do have a girlfriend after all.

After that bold/sissy statement, that was the end. Dennis put title (no land) on his girlfriend, Jake put both land and title (a ring) on his new fiance's finger, and I hooked up with some random for a couple days.

Once I get my floors replaced (sometime late winter/early spring), I may poll some of my younger less attached friends. After all, there is still interest on the women's side.