Home Team vs. Away Team
By: SingleDiva
How many times have you heard someone say that they don’t play games when it comes to dating? Or, that playing dating games is immature and should be left in high school? They are right but at the same time, they are wrong. After all, if you date, you play games. The entire concept of dating is a sport. It’s an especially unique sport if you live in South Florida. Think of any sport out there, and the first things that come to mind are: where the team is from, what is their mascot, what do the uniforms look like, what is their record, etc. Just like dating.
Obviously, the teams in dating are men and women. In South Florida, the issue of where the team is from becomes especially important and hard to navigate. The home team is usually easy to spot. You recognize the uniform and most of the time, the face. After all, if you grew up down here, chances are good you went to high school with most of the home team. If you did, that can be bad because you know too much about them to consider them dating material. I was recently hit on at City Limits by a guy I used to baby-sit. If you don’t personally know them, you know someone who does and again, you know too much. On the upside though, if you can get past that and give it a chance, there’s a high probability that you have a lot of mutual friends in common. Now the away team (also known as the visitors, see the theme?) is usually pretty easy to spot. It’s not just the away uniform but their whole persona can give them away. They aren’t bad, just different. This can be a problem for a home team woman if she’s looking to really meet someone with potential for a relationship. You see, the away team men are on vacation, business trip, etc. Their minds are in vacation mode. This is good if you just want to hang out with new people for a night and have fun. If you want phone calls, dates and things like that, not so good. Now there are those away team members who are kind of stuck in the middle. They now live in the hometown but if it’s been less than a year, their mind is still in vacation mode and they just want to play the game.
As for team mascots, this differs. For the women it can be everything from accessories such as the right purse and shoes to a dog that can fit into that purse. For the men it varies a little more. Some like their clothes to be more laid back surfer style and others go for the business casual look. Men have also been known to use their cars as mascots. Who among us hasn’t noticed the line up of cars for valet downtown in Delray outside of 32 East? Those cars weren’t put there by accident. Men and women have also been known to use each other as mascots as well.
Uniforms are a big issue for both men and women regardless of if they are hometown or away. It does vary though depending on if you are hometown or away. Any given weekend night in downtown Delray will show you what I’m talking about. For the hometown man the uniform is normally either jeans or nice pants with a button down shirt. Whether the team member shops at Nordstrom’s or the surf shops is irrelevant, they go for the button down shirts for their going out uniform. For the away team man it’s a bit different. A lot of them don’t realize that not many men in South Florida go out at night in shorts and sandals. That lets us hometown women know exactly what we are dealing with from the start. If it’s not this look then it’s normally the standard khaki’s with a polo shirt…collar up. For the hometown women, it’s pretty simple and yet we have to change our clothes 14 times before leaving the house only to end up wearing the same style of clothes we always wear. Either a skirt and top (most likely sleeveless), a dress or jeans with a tank top of some sort. My friends and I even refer to this as “the uniform” because we all wear it so much. Hey, it’s hot down here. Have to be comfortable. The away team women go for jeans but they are a different cut with polo or button down shirts a lot of the time. Or you see some khaki’s come out in one form or another. It’s not their fault and they don’t look bad. It’s just that other parts of the country are a bit more conservative than we are in South Florida.
As for the record of each team, it varies. Everyone has their own track record of wins vs. losses and even what each team member considers a win or a loss varies person to person. That is to be sorted out on an individual basis when the teams meet one on one. Hopefully over dinner or something like that.
So, next time you hear yourself saying that you don’t play game in dating, think again. Yes, you do. If we are dating then we are playing a game. It’s just a matter of how many games you play and what type. Keep in mind too that while you might be part of the hometown team right now, you might be part of the away team one day so be nice to the away team when they try to buy you a drink at City Limits. You will want someone to be nice to you when you go to play on their turf.
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