The first in an occasional series on how not to be “That Guy”.

There is a tacit yet rigid code that underlies the behavior of NFL fans. Some of these rules, like never switching team allegiances, are sacrosanct, others are open for debate. While we at the Gay Mafia aren’t always in the right on all of them, we’ll be glad to shrilly debate any that require clarification.

The first query comes from Jason Woodmansee, who you may remember from such blogs as The Coach is Killing Me! and Stop Shuler. He said he’s been sitting on this one for a few months and needed a ruling.

The basic question is: when is it OK to wear your replica team jersey? I’m not looking for a real world appropriateness, like if you should wear your Hines Ward jersey to The Palm, but football situations. On Super Bowl Sunday, I went to the grocery store here in San Diego to pick up some extra beer (Anchor Steam, in fact), and saw a guy wearing a Tomlinson jersey. Then another. And a guy in a Rivers jersey (the door did not fly open). And a guy in a Merriman jersey (not actually Merriman — although I did find out when his car got torched that he lives in my neighborhood). I wanted to go up to these guys and politely inform them that, if they weren’t already aware, the Chargers had actually lost to the Patriots — they wouldn’t be playing today.

So I go home, tell my wife there there are moron Chargers fans wearing jerseys on a day that their team isn’t playing, when our guests for the game arrive. I open the door, and there is our friend, the rabid (is there any other kind? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has said, “you know, I kinda like the Steelers, but it isn’t a big deal”) Steelers fan, in his Roethlisberger jersey. I burst out laughing, just because I was making fun of confused Chargers fans, and actually did say, “Um, you do know that they lost to the Jags a couple of weeks ago, right?” He basically took the Puddy defense: “You gotta support the team.”

So, is wearing your team’s jersey to watch a game where they are not playing lame, or is it showing your true fanhood? Is it OK for the Super Bowl because it is the last game of the football season, and your last chance to do it for a while?

KSK is not of one mind on this matter. flubby considers any ownership of replica jerseys kind of ridiculous on its face. I own two of them – the home Hines Ward replica that I use to take pictures with giant parrots and get fired from my job and a gray Roethlisberger jersey that the team never wears but I don when they play on the road.

A few weeks ago, there was the well-circulated story about the fast food joint-employed Seahawks fan who spit in the Steelers fan’s burger two years after the cooked-up controversy (I’ll never bend!) that was Super Bowl XL. One underreported aspect of the story was that the Steelers fan came into the place wearing Steelers apparel. In March. In Seattle.

Here is where further description is needed. What constitutes apparel? Was this a hat? A jersey? One giant Terrible Towel wrapped around his midsection? It’s an important distinction. Because wearing a jersey on almost any occasion that doesn’t include a day that your favorite team is playing is a nisht-nisht. Sure, the draft would be okay. I know there are those late fucking summer days when the meaninglessness of the pre-season makes me want to dip in the well of possible atrocities and I want to put on a jersey to remind myself that the season is coming, sometime.

But sporting the jersey during playoff games when your team has already been eliminated is among the worst infractions. It’s like clinging to a dead ideology. It’s akin to keeping Kerry bumper stickers on your car or wearing Nazi paraphernalia (Unless you’re Punter, then it’s cool). Yeah, we know you’re a racist, but the Third Reich is done, buddy.

Readers with other fan decorum related queries can e-mail them our way via the e-mail on the sidebar.