"...So Much For The Theory That Going For Coffee Is The Least Awkward First Date Option..."

Clean air, clean water, inspiring politicians, common sense.

Plenty of things in this life that are in perilously short supply.

Meanwhile, we are experiencing an unprecedented availability of royalty.

More on that in a moment

Sporting de Huelva's Elena Pavel has claimed that a referee invited her on a date in the middle of a game.

During Huelva's recent match at Santa Teresa in Spain's Primera Division, referee Santiago Quijada Alcon is said to have asked the 31-year-old defender to go for coffee. The Sun reports:

The whistler allegedly told the shocked Romanian: "Hey brown-hair, let's get coffee this afternoon." 

She said: "I've stopped believing in football, in fair play. I feel helpless, humiliated. In the many years I've been playing football I've never felt so ashamed."Better stick to blowing your whistle."

Pavel rebuffed the offer and subsequently saw two of her teammates sent off and a clear penalty opportunity denied in what resulted in a 3-2 loss.

According to Marca (h/t Sports Illustrated), the Romanian defender will not make a formal complaint because "it's her word against his."

No one possessed of the tiniest shard of the aforementioned rare, and rapidly becoming extinct, common sense would see this referee's behavior as anything less than cheesy.

And there's really no discounting those who would take indignation a little further and throw a flag at this loser accusing him of being tacky, tasteless, insensitive and, of course, inappropriate.

If nothing else, there is certainly no defense against an indictment on the grounds of "absolutely wrong time, absolutely wrong place."

So, calling a foul is certainly in order.

Here's a different kick on the matter, though.

We live in a world suddenly inundated with hair triggers and an automatic tendency to pull them, often without a thought, almost more as if by instinct as opposed to design. Quickly yanked by a growing mass of people who find something that offends them about anything and everything that has even the slightest hint of possibility to generate offense.

And in this incident, Elena Pavel, inadvertently, illustrates this trend towards outrage being the only setting on the meter when it comes to rating human misbehavior.

She got hit on.

By a doofus.

And it was, as already offered here, both unfortunate and inappropriate.

But.....

"I've stopped believing in football, in fair play. I feel helpless, humiliated. In the many years I've been playing football I've never felt so ashamed."

...really?

Helpless?

Surrounded by thousands of spectators.

Humiliated?

By a doofus who asked you out for coffee in an extraordinarily stupid manner?

Ashamed?

Of what? There is no shame in being asked out for coffee in an extraordinarily stupid manner by a doofus in front of thousands of spectators.

Stopped believing in football?

Uh...because you were asked out for coffee in an extraordinarily stupid manner by a doofus in front of thousands of spectators?

Old saying.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

New addendum to that old saying.

Let the level of complaint fit that crime, as well.

And how about saving helpless, humiliated, ashamed and loss of belief in a life long sport for experiences that irrefutably justify those emotions?

I mean, seriously, girl, it's not like the ref named you Miss Universe and then yanked it away from you.

Oh...and don't be offended by my lack of support for your assertion that you have been offended.

Or think that I don't think this matters.

It's not a matter of it not mattering.

It's a matter of how much it matters.

Clean air, clean water, inspiring politicians, common sense.

Plenty of things in this life that are in perilously short supply.

Meanwhile, we are experiencing an unprecedented availability of royalty.

An ever increasing number of drama queens.