As a Chicago native who’s experienced several Chicago championships in my lifetime, I can say beyond any reasonable doubt that there’s nothing quite like being home when it happens. You’re around friends and family, there’s a palpable excitement throughout the city, you get to ditch school to go to the victory parade. It’s awesome. For the brief, blissful period after the team hoists Lord Stanley’s Cup (or the Lombardi trophy, or what have you), it seems that everyone is in on the party. You get the feeling that you can high five anybody, hug anybody, even let anybody off the hook for spraying champagne in your face as you’re celebrating at the pub (Damn you, Chris O’Donnell. True story).

But, inevitably, the honeymoon comes to an end. A couple of months pass, and you’re suddenly not so down with a drunk stranger greeting you with “Blackhawks! F— yeah!” followed by a bear hug. It’s sort of like walking down the streets of Cleveland or Oakland or Baltimore or anywhere else with a mediocre-to-bad baseball team getting all riled up upon seeing a fellow fan and then expecting them to reciprocate. These types of exchanges are often uncomfortable for the other fan. You’re in your home city, so there’s a tacit agreement that you both support the home team, and nothing remarkable has happened lately, so why are you acting this way? This is a sad truth about public displays of sports affection: as unbridled as a fan’s passion appears to be, there are still limits and etiquette that must be observed.

I’m reminded of the semester I spent in Florence last fall. Suffering from gridiron withdrawal, I stumbled upon a dingy little bar one fateful Sunday evening, with an even dingier room in the back for American football. It was small and hidden, sort of like the men’s department at a Forever 21 store. But instead of feeling like a damn fool because you’re a man shopping at Forever 21, you feel good about yourself in that back room.

A strange sense of camaraderie came over me. There were several other Bears fans there for the game, and even though they seemed like North Shore douche bags, we got along swimmingly. We talked football, drank beer, and made fun of Italians the entire game. In a city where I knew no one, I felt like I belonged, if only for a few hours.

And this wasn’t an isolated incident. Once, after seeing my Cubs hat, a nice young Chicagoan lady bought me a glass of wine and chatted me up for a while—something that never, ever happened with an Italian woman. They’re all Cardinals fans, I guess. Another time I exchanged pleasantries with a young fellow who was literally trying to stick a Cubs sticker on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I didn’t exactly help him because I’m down with cultural sensitivity and the preservation of priceless architectural works and all that stuff. But I didn’t exactly try and stop him, either. It’s all part of the etiquette.

Since returning to school several weeks ago I had all but forgotten about this interesting phenomenon. I know most of the Chicago folk on campus, and the only non-Chicago team I root for, the Italian soccer squad Fiorentina, sounds like a kind of ravioli to most people. So new encounters with fellow fans have been few and far between. That is, until this past Monday night. It was Bears-Packers, the oldest rivalry in the NFL. Primetime. I walked to Hero’s in the village with a few other casual Bears and Packers fans. At first it appeared that we were the only ones in the bar with any real allegiance, which didn’t surprise me at all. Several minutes later, however, a large man in a Brian Urlacher jersey emerged from the bathroom and plopped down at the table next to us with a couple of his buddies. He looked like a bespectacled version of that fat comedian Ralphie May, but nowhere near as funny. He was loud, abrasive, and generally unpleasant to be around. But of course I sang the fight song with him. Of course we periodically high-fived. Of course I laughed when he told me that his ex-wife could look just like Clay Matthews if she worked out more. I had to. And you know what, it was a good time. Any time you can drink a few beers, be around (mostly) good people, end up with a win, and honor sports fan etiquette, you know it’s been a good night.

It’s nice to know that you don’t have to be out of the country for this rule to apply. Unexpectedly finding another Bears fan in Claremont certainly permits you to make a small scene, though not as large of a scene as a Bears fan sighting overseas, of course (It’s a good thing, too, otherwise fat Urlacher may have tried to hug me or something. It would’ve been like that scene from Fight Club). It seems that the farther away you are from home, the more openly excited you can be about encountering another fan. So, for all you out-of-towners, I suggest you take full advantage of the “We’re far from home, we like the same team, let’s act like idiots” rule before you’re home again and it’s back to unspoken solidarity.