Fall is great for so many things -- having an excuse to buy all of the sweaters you’ve been eyeing at Anthropologie, pumpkin spice lattes coming back to Starbucks, the thrill of football season, and the cooler weather. 

However, if you’re a girl from the South, you know there’s a different kind of season that also comes when the leaves start changing colors. 

If you grew up around any respectable men (or rednecks), you know that fall really means one thing: deer season. Suddenly, your dad, brothers, and boyfriends have changed out of their khakis and button-downs into full-on camouflage and they retreat into the woods until sometime after Christmas.

The key to surviving hunting season which, basically, lasts through Easter (if the man in your life also turkey hunts) is to think of it as a positive time to spend doing things for yourself and with your friends. Once you come to terms with the fact that all your boyfriend will be thinking about is a four-legged animal with horns, you’ll be fine. Just know that you get him May through August, and on most major holidays. Hopefully, he’ll make an exception for your birthday if it happens to fall somewhere between October and January, but don’t be totally shocked if he doesn’t. 

I was texting my dad a few weeks ago, and I asked him what he was doing. He responded by saying he was having to spend more time with Mom because hunting season and football season is just around the corner. Avid hunters do not take deer season lightly. It is a lifelong commitment filled with constantly watching the Outdoor Channel, scanning pictures of deer from trail cameras while at the dinner table, and washing all of their camouflage in a special detergent. Lots of men have a plague-like football obsession, but it is in no comparison to the obsession of being in the woods.

The decision of whether or not to accompany your hunter into the woods this winter is up to you, but be prepared to endure a little walking and lots of cold. If you can’t swallow covering yourself in camouflage, just forget it. Instead, take a nice relaxing trip to the mall, read a book, or go to dinner with your friends.

Prepare yourself! You may not have a date to some football games, you probably won’t get to spend a lot of time snuggling on the couch on the weekends, and you might even be forced to eat some venison (still struggling with this), but don’t take it personally. 

Convince yourself that deer season is about you. It’s a time of year that your boyfriend gives you some space to do things for yourself. Enjoy it and don’t be a pain about it. There’s probably no faster way to lose your boyfriend than to give him a hard time about spending too much time hunting. Love it or leave him -- the obsession isn’t going anywhere.