Cheering for another team may be a relationship deal-breaker for some Bills fans
There’s a moment in any new relationship.
After each person has determined the other’s political and religious preferences, and their credit rating, sports will come up.
“What’s your team?” the Buffalo Bills fan will ask.
“The New England Patriots,” the other will say.
A recent survey suggests that 23 percent of Bills fans in that situation might get up, throw down a napkin and exit the room, the relationship ended before it really got started.
The survey also showed that 22 percent of Patriots fans would throw down the napkin, as well.
These statistics emerged from a study conducted by the website, The Grueling Truth. A little over 1,000 football fans were asked if a future partner’s “cheering for another team (was) a potential relationship dealbreaker.”
Overall, 10 percent of the fans surveyed would be troubled if a potential partner rooted for a different team.
Sixty nine percent of the respondents were male, 30 percent were female, and 1 percent identified as non-binary. Thus, the survey may shortchange female fans. And the number of Bills rooters who responded is somewhat small, perhaps 90 or so.
Still, from my days writing about Bills fans, and my time going to games as a paying spectator, I would say that I don’t run into a lot of mixed sporting unions.
It would be unlikely to be wandering through the parking lot and come upon a lovey-dovey couple, one in a Bills shirt, the other in a Patriots shirt. Indeed, I can’t believe that would happen without years of counseling.
Love has a better chance Monday night when the Bills take on the New York Jets in New Jersey, if only because Jets fans aren’t that fussy. The survey indicates that only 1 in 10 Jets fans would consider non-Jets rooting to be a dealbreaker.
For what it’s worth, Arizona Cardinals fans (67 percent) are the most vehemently opposed to dating someone who backs another team. New Orleans Saints fans are the most welcoming. They’ll date anyone, according to the survey.
Of course, I may be looking at all these numbers in the wrong way. Whereas 23 percent of Bills fans won’t cross-date, 77 percent of them will.
And I have seen fans of different teams more-or-less peacefully co-exist.
There’s some taunting when my friend Tom Bushnell, a Bills loyalist, spends time with his in-laws in Boston, ground zero for Patriots fans. But, Tom gives as good as he gets, and I think he gets to sit at the adult table for Thanksgiving dinner.
So, on the positive sides of things, what’s the secret to making mixed unions work? Fans, let me know how you learned to look beyond someone else’s delusional loyalty to another team.
Do you allow trash talk? How did you break the news to your parents that you were dating someone from the other side?
Answer these questions and, in the spirit of peace and harmony, I’ll pass along your responses.
Family friendly hotels may have been difficult to find 100 years ago
Those of you who traveled with children over the Labor Day weekend may have taken your lodgings for granted.
A story from 100 years ago in the Democrat and Chronicle reminds us that there was a time when “children were considered undesirable tenants by hotel keepers.”
Though I’m happy to report that wasn’t the case at the Hotel Seneca and the Hotel Rochester in Rochester.
“Children have just as much right to stay at a hotel as anyone else,” Lewis N. Wiggins, manager of both hotels, told the newspaper, as reported on Sept. 10, 1923.
Wiggins made sure the traveling child got toys and “other little things.”
“It is just a much a part of hotel service to look after the little need of a child as it is to serve ice water to an adult,” he added.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills fans often see team loyalty as relationship deal-breaker
