Calling an Audible

Being a huge football fan (and having spent far too much time with frat guys in college), I know what it means in football speak to call an audible. (For those of you who don't, it's when a quarterback gets to the line of scrimmage and changes the play call when he sees how the defense is set up.) But when someone actually said it to me in regular conversation the other day, I had absolutely no idea what it meant.

So, obviously, being a good internet junky I went home and Googled it. According to Urban Dictionary, in dating terms it means when you are talking to someone and they express they are not interested in you by working a rejection into the conversation, such as dropping the boyfriend/girlfriend bomb.

Now, this is a known strategy for getting out of some sticky situations, such as the way I let Neighbor Man know that I had no romantic interest in him. But up until this point, I had no idea there was an actual definition for it in boy speak! Brilliant!

No one really enjoys hearing that someone they are interested in, or have been involved with in the past, is currently dating someone new. It's obviously always a blow to the ego at the very least. But, I never really thought that it could bother people so much.

For example, if I rejected someone in the past, say Neighbor Man, and I found out that he had a girlfriend now, I would actuually be relieved and happy for him, and know that I could stop hiding behind the ficus in my lobby for fear of running into him. But apparently some, namely guys as R has informed me, find this to be a dig when you tell them you have a boyfriend and they don't appreciate it. I find this to be entirely baffling behavior.

But then again, these are the people that find it entirely normal to reach down their pants multiple times a day and adjust their balls, so really I can't be that surprised.