There were no flags on the field on Dec. 19, when I watched haplessly from my couch as Desean Jackson sliced through bumbling New York Giants defenders en route to a game-winning, kick-to-the-groin touchdown as time expired in the fourth quarter.
The Giants' unbelievable choke-fest against the Philadelphia Eagles set the stage for yet another historic end-of-the-year collapse, in which they went from a first place, mortal lock Superbowl contender to a pitiful gang of stooges seemingly hell-bent on fulfilling Murphy's Law. But you know what they say about a car-wreck no matter how gruesome it may be, it's almost impossible to look away. So instead of keeping my distance until the ambulances arrived, I craned my neck out the window even more to get a full view of the carnage that was the end of the Giants' 2010 football season.
I had to evaluate why I put myself through this agony year after year. Being a Giants fan, I've learned, is like dating a serial cheater. Every couple of weeks I come home in horror to find them in bed with someone else. I run out of the room in tears, call up my best girlfriends who reassure me that the Giants are jerks that I'm way too good for them, and that there's a team out there much better for me.
But then, after a few days locked away in my room, subsisting on chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, watching Gossip Girl re-runs and wearing my fat sweatpants, they show up at my door with flowers. Brandon Jacobs runs for 150 yards and scores two touchdowns, the defense has, like, eight sacks and they promise me they'll never hurt me again. Like a poor, beaten-up puppy I come running back none the wiser. And just when I think they've really changed, Jackson is sprinting untouched 50 yards into the end zone and I'm on the couch again.
So why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we put up with those people and things that cause us grief over and over again in the hope that maybe, one day, they'll surprise us? The answer, I've come to find, is the human tendency to enjoy being chafed.
Before you call me crazy and drop this paper, ask yourself what you're doing here this term. I stepped out of the car in Hanover just one day after New Years, stepped into the familiar poop-brown mud-slash-snow-slush covering the ground and thought about my potential 9L, 10A, 2A schedule. Welcome to winter in Hanover: Chafe City, USA, where it's always snowy.
What are your friends doing this term? Learning to scuba dive in Australia? Clubbing it up Eurotrash style in Barcelona? Being glamorous in New York City? Think about it. Most people take Winter here as their off-term. At schools like Williams and Middlebury, they take one class and call January their "J-Term." Here in Hanover, we've got Chafe Term.
So what is "chafed," you ask? Well, not the exact definition, but the feeling itself. Trust me, it's a familiar one. It's losing to two girls by a half cup because you "felt bad calling their shots low." If you're an athlete, it's waking up for that 7 a.m. lift only to see that the rain-on-snow combo will make walking across the Green seem like Washington crossing the Delaware. For me, it's the feeling I get when I have to explain that yes, squash is a varsity sport. It's losing to Harvard (again) in any sport even though, "seriously, this is the best chance we've had in a while."
I should clarify by saying that no, it's not that we actually enjoy these little chafes. Rather, it's the times that they don't happen those magical breaks in our continuous grinds that make life so sweet sometimes. For my Giants, despite all they put me through on a yearly basis, seeing Eli's confused look of happiness as he hoisted the Lombardi Trophy over his head in 2008 keeps me coming back for more. If you're a Red Sox fan, I can imagine 2004 was pretty similar. If you're in Hanover this winter, well, uh we can still play pong sometimes. So we've got that going for us. Which is nice.
