One of the Guys

Being one of the guys sounds ideal to most girls. Less bitchiness. You can say whatever pops into your mind and not worry about being judged for it. You can eat and drink however much want and there's always gonna be someone there eating or drinking more than you. And to top it all off, it's like having a load of protective older brothers when the time comes.

As much as it can be a complete dream most of the time, there are times when having a majority male friendship group can be a pain in the arse.

You don't realise it at first. Not when you're out on late night drives with just one of them, chilling out and chatting about anything and everything. It's when you meet up to go to the pub without the only other female in your group. That's when you notice how much football chat takes over the evening.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I am not some bimbo that knows nothing about the sporting world, hell I'd go as far as to say I'm the most educated on the subject of rugby within my group. I know stuff. I have the capability to hold a conversation over something other than nail polish and high heels. But sit there and talk about football all night and of course I'm going to run out of things to say.

The worst thing about this is the looks that can sometimes coincide with the look of boredom that slowly creeps across your face. For these such times I have a few handy tips that should help keep you sane throughout your evening of football chatter:

1. Probably the most logical of all, keep an eye on the football over the weekend and then at least you have some kind of input into the conversation. This also acts as an incentive to pay attention to what's being said so that you can interject at the right moment. This however is the most time consuming and boring of a the tips I've listed.

2. Make sure your phone is fully charged. There is nothing worse than being stuck in this situation without social media to flick through or friends to frantically text to keep you entertained.

3. Drink through it. I've found that the more I drink when these occasions arise, the less the football chat bothers me and the more likely I am to try to swerve the conversation away from it to something I can talk about a little bit more.

4. Smoke, This, even though risky to ones health, I have found (if only briefly) stops the chat so that you and any other smoker can go outside and talk about anything else. This one is a definite helper when it comes to sanity.

5. Organise the occasion around a pub organised night, such as a quiz. This is something that me and my friends have organised as our social occasion once a week. It's the only time I really see the guys without the other aforementioned lady of the group. This stops the chat all together for long periods of time, adds lots more talking points to the evening and prevents any kind of boredom for the majority of the evening whilst the quiz is in play.

These are all tried and tested methods that I have used in the past and will continue to use in the future that have worked perfectly, so I highly reccomend them for any frustrated honorary lads out there.

None of this however makes me regret having the friends I have. In the words of Janis Ian they're 'the greatest people you will ever meet', they're there when I need them most to cheer me up when I'm feeling down and weird enough to make me seem almost normal.

I guess what I'm trying to say here to round it off is, as much as the boring old football chat can drive you insane, they're gonna be there for you no matter what. Never take that for granted. Cause I can tell you for certain that I'd much rather have the football talk over bitch fights and drink throwing any day.