I learned this weekend that hope is one of the cruelest emotions Mother Nature ever conjured up.

As an avid sports fan, I am ashamed to admit I have never seen the sport of football played live, minus a few backyard barbecue attempts at a pickup game. (Whether you can actually classify that as football is debatable.)

My high school didn’t have a team due to, as urban legend would have it, an unfortunate accident involving a player running into a goalpost and dying. Good ol’ Hicksville, U.S.A.

Sadly, I’ve also never quite gotten up the motivation to go to a Northeastern football game at Parsons Field. (Get going on that stadium, President Freeland, and maybe I’ll convince my lazy self to get over there and muster up some Husky pride.)

Most depressingly, however, I have never witnessed a professional football game. Despite my devotion to the sport and all its glory, my lifetime viewing record has been restricted to a leather couch and Toshiba television. Sometimes, I’ll open all the windows in my living room until I can see my breath, just to give me a little taste of how the game atmosphere must feel.

So when my dad called me a few weeks back to tell me we might have tickets to a Patriots playoff game, I flipped. Apparently my dad knew a guy who knew a guy who had connections and was putting together a bus trip. I could see it already — a bus ride there and back, a fully catered tailgating party, and me, freezing my butt off while cheering for Tom Brady and Co. Does life get any better than that?

But there was a catch: Assuming the Pats beat the Indianapolis Colts and advanced to the AFC Championship, we only had a chance at tickets if the New York Jets beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, thus setting up a Jets-Pats showdown at the Pats’ home field, Gillette Stadium. But if the No. 1 seeded Steelers won, the Pats would be forced to travel to Pittsburgh to play, which meant no bus ride, no tailgating and no tickets.

I lamented my situation to other football-loving friends of mine, who all said hell had already frozen over for the Sox this year, and I shouldn’t expect it again for the somewhat woeful Jets, who had barely won the week before in overtime thanks to a botched field goal by the other team. So I believed them, accepted the fact that the Steelers would easily pound the emotionally and physcially exhausted Jets and all but let go of my hopes of witnessing a championship game at Gillette Stadium.

Lo and behold, ye of little faith over here watched as the Jets came back from a 10-0 deficit to tie it and then take the lead on an interception of Steelers phenom rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. My hopes soared as it seemed like maybe, just maybe, the Jets had a fighting chance. I prepared offerings and sacrifices to the football gods of historic proportions (including my vintage New England jersey), if only the Jets could take down the mighty Steelers and send me to my first live game.

With the game tied at 17, the Jets marched down the field to set up a 47-yard field goal with 1:58 remaining. At this point, I could smell the hot dogs cooking in the parking lot, I could see the snowflakes falling on the field, I could hear myself yelling “Hey!” in unison with 60,000 other football freaks every time the Pats scored. I was practically at Gillette already as Jets kicker Doug Brien sent the pigskin sailing toward the uprights.

A loud clang sent me crashing to my knees, completely stunned. The ball had hit the post and bounced off. I was half a foot away from my dream, only to have it foiled at the last possible second. Steelers players came running onto the field, poised and ready to put a drive together and score. Defeat seemed inevitable, and I once again let go of the dream.

Ten seconds later, on the first throw of the drive, Roethlisberger threw the ball straight to Jets player David Barrett at the Steelers’ 37-yard line. I felt like someone had just hooked me up to a defibrilator and jolted me back to life. I couldn’t believe I was rooting so hard for a team I usually hate, that my loyalties were so easily broken with just a bit of incentive. I felt fickle, but I didn’t care. As long as Brien didn’t screw it up a second time, I was headed to the game of a lifetime.

Mr. Karma must have heard me, because he came back to bite me and the Jets in the you-know-what. With four seconds left in the game, Brien’s kick wasn’t even close. It was so bad, I think I could have gotten it closer than he did.

The color drained from my face, and I slowly retreated to the fetal position on my dorm room floor. I watched as, in overtime, the Steelers finally did what they were supposed to do all game — and let out a gutteral scream of agony as Steelers kicker Jeff Reed put a 33-yarder easily through the uprights to win it. The final vision of Gillette Stadium I came so close to actually seeing — not once, but twice — quickly faded away.

I would have much rather witnessed a blowout; would have preferred never to feel the aching promise of hope. I was emotionally drained; I felt as though someone had been playing yo-yo with my heart for the past three-and-a-half hours.

Then my brother, sensible as he is, reminded me, “Hey, you should be used to this, you’re a Red Sox fan.”

Ahh, yes, how quickly we forget. The Sox have won the Series, the Pats are a dynasty and up to this point I have had nothing to woe and whine over. So the football gods, in all their wisdom, graciously provided me a crushing blow and returned me to my normal state of bitterness. Although indirect, it was just another day’s work in the life of a Boston sports fan.

– Sarah Metcalf is a sophomore journalism major and a member of The News staff.