What His Super Bowl Style Says About Him on Yahoo! Health

Sure, the Super Bowl is most known for laugh-out-loud commercials and headline-making halftime shows. But, ladies, that doesn't mean you can't get more out of one of the biggest party nights of the year, even if you could care less whether the Bears, Colts, or the Budweiser ad guys score the big win of the night. In a survey of 1,000 people, 44 percent of women said that knowledge of sports was extremely important for attraction. So I know you're very much in tune with how your boyfriend or husband reacts to all kinds of ball games. But you can also use one of the biggest games of the year as a mini-microscope into his way of thinking. The benefit: You may avoid future conflicts and even enhance your relationship by understanding your boyfriend or husband's Super Bowl style.

Style #1: The Know-It-All Guy

There are some guys who can trot out lots of stats, analysis, or bordering-on-stalkerish biographical details about Rex Grossman. This stat-monster may come off like a sports-hungry caveman who has nothing better to do than watch or surf ESPN all day long. But the truth is that, for many guys, sports serve as a huge neurological outlet: They work his cerebral side of his brain (because he thinks he knows more than the coach) as well his emotional (because he's passionate about those teams he grew up with). How to deal with him pre-Super Bowl? Unless you can match him stat-for-stat, it may be wise to give him the space to spend some alone time with his favorite play-by-play announcers. Your alone time with him needs to be when he can devote all his attention to you.

Style #2: The No-Girls-Allowed Guy

He sees the game as the exclusive domain of men. Chest hair, Sky Cam, Phil Simms--all locked in manly symbiosis. Why? Not only so they can play the commercials with the beer girls in slow-mo. It's also because-even if they don't articulate it quite this way-guy time is a major component of a man's overall stress-busting plan. The Moose Lodge is dead, now, and sports are a replacement for the male-only haven for some guys. So while women, children, and non-football fans can fit in well around the periphery of Super Sunday, once the opening kickoff goes up, your man may draw the circle close to his buds and fellow fans. Let him do it: It's only one day of the year, after all. And it does him good to relax, really relax, among his peers. If you make this day easy for him, you'll be repaid when it's time for girl's night out. The strongest couples preserve space for individual enthusiasms at the same time they build new ones together. But this may not happen at 6:30 on Sunday. If he feels he's getting his time then, he's that much more likely to make plans for couple time the other 51 weeks of the year.

Style #3: The Not-Interested-in-Sports Guy

There's no doubt that there are plenty of men in this world who could care less about sports, who think of zoos when they hear that the Bears and Colts are playing, and who would be just as happy spending Sunday afternoons at an empty multiplex or pushing your shopping cart through Bed, Bath & Beyond, because sports just "aren't his thing." All that's fine, of course. But the danger is that some of these guys tend to be alienated from other men, because they don't have the common conversational ground to chime in with a fact about the Manning brothers or insight into whether Good Rex or Bad Rex is going to show up on Sunday. It doesn't really matter whether a man likes sports or not, but it does matter that it's harder and harder for men to find and maintain friendships as they get older and take on more responsibilities. And that makes it even more important to encourage him to find his own buddy-bonding opportunities if spectator sports isn't one of them. If he's the kind who wants to get in the game--with golfing partners, pick-up basketball, or running mates--so much the better. The ultimate payoff: Having a regular group of buds will improve his health, since a lack of social networks as men get older is one of the big contributing factors to poor health as men age.

Style #4: The Yell-at-the-TV Guy

It's just in a guy's nature-especially when there are lots of guys around-to yell at a TV like they're 40 rows up in a stadium, and need to bellow so the coach can hear them (research shows that 90 percent of men admit to yelling at the TV when their team screws up). While the obvious code for a guy who does so would be that he takes his sports a little too seriously, it can also mean something else. In a way, what he's trying to do is amp the entertainment value of the event with witty banter, roaring repartee, condescending insults, or memorable one-liners. And shouting bloody murder has it's place, too. As long as he doesn't launch into egocentric taunts of guests who are rooting for the other team, or multi-day blue periods after a loss, you've got a guy who-deep down-is in the business of trying to make his guests happy. Which likely means good things for you, post-game. The really good news: as of Sunday at about 10pm, the new football season will be, officially, 214 days away. Welcome to the off-season!

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