Over the course of our (soon-to-be) two year relationship, I have expressed my love for my girlfriend in a variety of ways. Whether it be long, lovey-dovey text novels, bragging about her all over social media, buying loads of her favorite makeup products or food, I continue to show my girl how much she means to me and how important she is to my entire existence. As we head into December, football season is slowly coming to an end, and there is one crucial thing I have to tell her as we begin to (unfortunately) wind down the season...

Thank you for putting up with me during another football season!

I'm more than positive that the average football fan wouldn't feel the need to thank his girlfriend for putting up with another season of football, but I'm not your average football fan. I wake up (and wake her up) every Saturday at 5:45AM just to watch ESPN's College Gameday, I'm gone most of the day when the Huskies play at home, I scream too loud whenever my teams score a critical touchdown, I manage a Fantasy Football league, I make weekly predictions for both college and NFL, and that's just the start. So you can only imagine how my girlfriend must feel between September and the Super Bowl in early February.

I've tried countless times to get my girlfriend into sports, but she has yet to budge. However, I don't need my girlfriend to be the biggest sports fan. I love her more than anything in life and the fact that she continues to be there for me everyday-even on our days off and I'm on my phone watching NFL RedZone-I thank my lucky stars that I have this girl.

I'm extremely thankful that my girlfriend knows she's dating the world's biggest sports fan, but she constantly shows me love, support, affection, empathy, and everything else I want in a girlfriend. There are times I stop and think about how my football obsessed life could put a damper on what we have, and I have made some sacrifices because of this. The Alex of old would do absolutely nothing on Saturday's except sit in front of the tv and click on every single sports channel to catch a glimpse of whatever games were playing. I'm sure a moth was more productive than me on Saturdays. Now that I have a Monday-Friday job, I really treasure Saturdays and spend them with my girlfriend doing whatever we please, and it's an added bonus that she doesn't care if I check the scores as much as I want. I should also point out that my girlfriend knows how much I love my teams, so she knows right away that if the Huskies and Seahawks are playing, we're back home (or in front of a television) well before kickoff!

So again, thank you to my wonderful girlfriend for what you've had to put up with last season, this season, and whether you like it or not, what you'll have to put up with for the seasons to come. You've managed to survive another football season, and although we still have some college Bowl games in late December and early January along with the NFL Playoffs, I'd say the worst is pretty much over.