If your idea of romance involves watching a sporting event, you have two problems.

First, you should probably get out more — maybe try dinner and a movie. And if you’re an NIU sports fan, your second problem is you’ve probably had your heart broken more than a few times since the start of fall semester’s sports season.

But don’t get down with all the love in the air surrounding Valentine’s Day. The best way to forget your heartbreaks is to remember and learn something from them, then put them to rest.

The ultimate heartbreak: Akron beats NIU in football MAC championship

A broken heart should teach you a lesson: Don’t repeat your mistakes. But alas, even though favored in the MAC championship, NIU fell for the second time in the 2005 season to the Zips when it hurt the most. Akron scored 21 fourth-quarter points to top the Huskies and send them home like they’d just gotten dumped before the big dance.

Definitely want to forget that one.

Men’s soccer can’t get that crown

See, Buffalo learned its heartbreak lesson. The NIU men’s soccer team kicked the Bulls out of the national top-25 rankings when the Huskies won 1-0 during the regular season, but instead of crying about the loss, Buffalo served an ice-cold revenge dish to the Huskies in the MAC tournament. It was the Bulls who had the last laugh with their win in the tournament semi-finals.

NIU’s highest-ranked sport of the fall felt it: ouch, heartbreak.

The all-important sixth man

Probably the worst part of heartbreak is the regret. If only, if only. For instance, when NIU lost 67-66 in DeKalb to Toledo: “If only we’d had the regulation five men on the court!” With six players on the court, NIU was penalized and ended up losing the close MAC game against one of its MAC West rivals.

After that game, NIU could be truthful with the classic breakup line, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

There have been other heartbreaks of mention this year: The NIU wrestling team falling for the third-straight year to Central Michigan via a 33-2 thumping, the women’s basketball team’s ho-hum, 9-13 season.

Of course, there have been positives: Football’s MAC West title, two other nationally-ranked teams in wrestling and men’s soccer, but to sum it up, this year has been a year of “almosts” — a feeling similar to that “let’s just be friends” talk.