Now that one of my childhood friends is on a plane and jetting his way back to New Hampshire after watching his beloved Patriots take a win at the RCA Dome, I've had a chance to sit back an reflect on the last four days. And what I've come to conclude in this utter state of exhaustion is that this past weekend was more about balance than anything else.

You see, I'm not much of a sports fan. In recent years I've come to appreciate the artistry involved with tennis. I love watching it, but I don't play it. During the summer months, I like to watch the occasional baseball game, but I don't follow it. And I'll only watch football if either the Patriots or the Colts are in the playoffs or go to the Superbowl. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and moved from my hometown to Indy in my mid twenties. When it comes to that particular match up, I don't have a particular favorite. If it wasn't for my friend paying for the tickets, I probably would've been content to just sit home and watch the game on television. I'm just not that emotionally invested in the sport to really give a damn one way or the other. As it was, I walked into the Dome wearing a Naptown Roller Girls T-shirt. You can't get any more balanced than that. Yes, it's a local team. No, the roller girls aren't in it for sponsorships and multi-million dollar contracts. I played the night that way. And to the fans yanking each other's chains in the stands, I was invisible the whole night. Which is exactly the way I wanted it.

I'll be honest. This was my first time watching an NFL game in person and I did start to feed off the energy crackling through the air. By the end of the night I was fervently hoping Manning and company would get the victory back. But as the minutes started ticking off the clock, I watched a noticeable change waft over the spectators. To the left of me was a young couple barely in their twenties. The guy was all muscle and decked out in a Colts jersey. The lady was all brunette hair and doe-eyed in a Tom Brady/Patriots shirt. At the beginning of the game, they were happy and joking about how she had treated him to the game by purchasing the tickets. Their sentiments echoed my own as my friend and I had walked throughout downtown earlier in the day. Like Wayne and I, this young couple was showing that there could be peace and harmony among members of the warring factions. Unlike Wayne and I, though, this couple's peace treaty didn't make it through the final minutes of the game. When Tom Brady threw a 13-yard pass to Kevin Faulk for the final touchdown, the young lady erupted in gleeful celebration. Her man stayed quiet for the first thirty-seconds or so, but then as her excitement increased, he turned to her, put his face right up to hers, and screamed, "Shut up, you retard! You don't even know anything about f------ football!" The lady seemed stung for a moment, but started jumping up and down again a few seconds later.

I'm not sure what happened with the young couple next. My friend and I were talking with other spectators around us and we all agreed it was an exciting game, no matter what the outcome. A lot of these people were Colts fans and didn't seem dejected at all. A couple of minutes later, I looked over and there was the young lady sitting by herself on the bench, tears streaming down her face. Her guy was nowhere to be found. I kept thinking, "Surely, he'll come back." But he never did. She sat there for another five minutes or so, caught me helplessly glancing at her, and then got up and walked out. Alone. When I relayed this story to my wife this morning, she was aghast. "She better leave him now. He sounds like the kind of guy that could be controlling or abusive. Hopefully they're not too far along in their relationship." I just nodded my head. The whole thing had really touched off a nerve in me. My friend and I are two very different people. And yet, we came out of this event bonded by an amazing experience. How come this younger guy couldn't approach it the same way with his lady, who seemed to embody everything a sports-minded guy could want in a woman? It all came down to stupid male pride. They guy thought he knew his football well enough, at least better than his girl. Instead, he found out the hard way that sometimes there are just some things that don't go right during the course of the game. It's nobody's fault. That's just the way it happened at that particular moment in time. And instead of being happy for his girl, he took his sense of inferiority out on her. But it's his loss, because she was an extremely pretty and spunky gal. She was everything I wanted in a girl when I was twenty. And now, dude, she's probably gone.

So, yeah, it's all about balance. That's why I had taken my friend to the Big Car art gallery on the 2nd, and why I agreed to go to the Dome in the first place, even though it's not my kind of thing. Sometimes there are more important things out there than the game. Friendship and love win out every time.