I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy fantasy baseball. In fact, I’d be lying if I said didn’t LOVE fantasy baseball.
But the truth is, I’m hooked. I’m on my ESPN Fantasy League team page every day, analyzing performances, devouring stats, reading score sheets. I can’t get enough of the experts’ columns, the latest reports about who’s hot and who’s not, and browsing the free agent list to see who my competitors may not have been wise enough to pick up.
I love the whole competitive feel of it. It’s great to know when you’re winning, especially with the subtle, little victories such as a trade that goes your way, or a free agent pick-up that turns out to be one of your best players. You may be in the bottom of the standings one day, but after a couple of shrewd moves, right up there at the front of the pack. It’s exhilirating.
All in all, it’s an addiction that I truly love—and that my fiancee truly HATES.
But what’s interesting about this story is what it can show us about winning. Just like fantasy baseball victories are sometimes too subtle to immediately recognize, so it goes with victories in relationships.
As I said before, my girlfriend hates that I spend so much time on my fantasy baseball habit. She would NAG me about doing other things, like spending more time talking with her. Yeah, NAGGING, a sometimes daily nightmare that all of us guys have had to deal with. It’s not fun, and often drives a man away from the prescribed task more than it gets him to do it.
Unless….
Unless your girlfriend actually learned how to achieve what she wanted WITHOUT nagging.
At first, when I would sneak off during a movie or during a "How was your day?" session to check how my beloved fantasy team was performing, she would complain. And nag. And complain and nag. Her biggest thing would be that I don’t spend enough time talking to her. And the total effect would be to just make me more MORE inclined to check my team, to show that *I* was the man in control. Why couldn’t she just respect the hobby I so adore? I never asked her to like it. Just to deal with it.
Then a funny thing happened. She DID learn to deal with it. And in the process, I got hoodwinked by her subtle way of winning.
As most women know, the moment she begins to nag, men just tune out. We’re gone. We’re off in another place. I call my place James World. Maybe you have a name for your partner's alternate reality.
But there’s the flip side. Sometimes, instead of nagging, a girl starts to IGNORE you. And then we don’t know what’s happening!
This happened with Jen. I was so used to her routine of criticizing me for spending so much time on my fantasy league, that when it stopped, I thought something was wrong. There HAD to be something wrong. I mean, this wasn’t part of the routine! All of a sudden, when I went off to check the latest results, she wouldn’t say a thing. She’d go off somewhere. Then I’d be done checking, and she’d still be doing something else. I’d ask her what was up, and she’d say she was busy. "Huh", I would think to myself. "That’s unusual." So a few minutes later I went to check on her again. And she would brush me off again: "I gotta call someone", or "Give me 10 minutes."
Okay, now it was REALLY getting weird. Instead of automatically defending my habits, I was gaining some form of acceptance. Not routine. And as we men know, when things aren’t routine, SOMETHING’S not right.
So in the process of Jen being busy herself, I somehow began to change my habits. I wasn’t so eager to check my team, because it all of a sudden wasn’t prohibited. And that made it less fun. Now all of a sudden I found myself spending more time talking with her. And less time checking my fantasy league.
Then I realized it….
That was her plan all along. She didn’t stop nagging so much to let me do what I wanted. She stopped nagging so that I would do what SHE wanted!
I’d been had! I thought I was pretty good at the intricacies of fantasy baseball. But I’ve got a lot to learn about the intricacies of relationships.
Damn, women are good!