Prof says love life like playoffs

Sports analogies are common in everyday parlance, but Pitt English professor Cathy Day has… Sports analogies are common in everyday parlance, but Pitt English professor Cathy Day has taken such comparisons to a whole new level.

In Day’s recently published book, “Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love,” she parallels her search for love with the 2006 Indianapolis Colts season. “Up until [2007], when the Colts won the Super Bowl, that was their story, they lose in the playoffs,” she said. “And I think a lot of us can relate to that.” As the Colts traveled through their roller coaster of a season, which culminated with a playoff loss to the Steelers, she noticed many similarities between their quest and hers.

“It sounds pretty goofy, I know,” Day said. Day said that college students have trouble relating with adults searching for love, and that she hopes this book will help explain the differences. “You can’t imagine a time in your life where you can go six months without meeting someone of the opposite sex who is single,” Day said. “Once you’re not in school anymore, it’s really, really tough.” One major reason Day said college students cannot understand the hardships those older than them face is because they know how to use technology to their advantage. “There’s a difference between how people met each other a generation ago and how they meet each other now,” Day said. “Our generation has changed.”

Day pointed to social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace as an aspect of technology newer generations have perfected. “Your generation is comfortable with sharing your information like that,” she said. “Mine is not, but what other option do we have?”

In an effort to adapt to this brave, new world of social-networking websites, Day enlisted the help of those who know it best.

“I have found my students at Pitt to be incredibly compassionate of my project. My students are much more comfortable in social-networking sites, they had really good advice for me,” she said.

“It’s kind of silly, in a way, that my students have helped me through it.” Because her online efforts to find her special someone have been fruitless, Day said that she hopes to resist the e-dating trend.

“I want to meet people more organically,” she said.

While the Colts did win the Super Bowl the year following the season Day paralleled to her life, Day is yet to score the perfect husband. Ironically, writing the book about her love life may be part of the reason.

“I had to take some time off from [dating] to write the book,” Day said.

Just as Colts quarterback Peyton Manning received ridicule after their postseason loss, Day has been the recipient of some negative feedback for her book.

“While the premise of this memoir by novelist Day is promising, the narrator comes across as self-absorbed and whiney. The story of a 30-something professional’s search for love in her new home of Pittsburgh, Pa., neither inspires nor consoles women in similar situations,” a Publishers Weekly editorial review says of her book. Day said that the mixed reviews have gotten to her.

“It’s been hard, I’m not used to people not liking my work,” she said.

Despite the negative feedback, Day said her book has helped many people relate.

“I knew going into this project that not everyone was going to like it or understand it, but how people respond to the book depends a lot on their own experiences,” she said.

“We have to write the stories we feel we need to tell.”

Previously, Day’s novel “The Circus in Winter,” a fictional history about her hometown of Peru, Ind., was published by Harcourt in 2004.

While Day has faced her fair share of hardships, she remains optimistic that one day everything will work out.

“If the Colts can come back and win the Super Bowl,” she said, “then so can I.”