Let’s Review Travis Kelce’s Old Tweets Amid Rumors He’s Maybe??? Dating Taylor Swift

On Wednesday morning I was treated to not one but two fairly world-shattering items of news surrounding Ms. Taylor Swift—foremost, of course, her well-timed sighting with newly single Sophie Turner on Tuesday night in New York City. And then this little nugget that simultaneously came to light on NFL Twitter and Swiftie Twitter, two seemingly separate spheres of the website: It’s “100% true” that Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce are dating, Travis’ brother, the Philadelphia Eagles’ Jason Kelce, said on a local radio station, before conceding moments later that he doesn’t really know. Hmm!

By Wednesday afternoon you probably saw a slew of headlines along the lines of “Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce dating rumors are true, Eagles’ star brother says,” or heard an audio clip of Jason saying Swift and Travis are “doing great and… it’s all 100% true.” But you might not have heard the part where Jason says, “No, I’m joking, I don’t know what’s happening.” Fair enough! I don’t know what’s going on in my sisters’ dating lives beyond that one of them is married. While Jason and Travis are famously brothers who are both very good at catching a ball (err, I think??), and both played in the Super Bowl last year, they’re different people! Jason can’t possibly be expected to answer for whoever his brother is or isn’t “quietly hanging out with.”

In sum, despite the early morning false positive, we’re still no closer to figuring out whether reports of a budding, distinctly ~quiet~ romance between Travis and Swift is or isn’t happening. All of this comes after, earlier this summer, Travis expressed disappointment that he wasn’t able to gift Swift with a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it or meet her after he attended the Kansas City Eras tour stop, admitting on the podcast he co-hosts with Jason that he was “butthurt” but understood she needed to “save” her voice. (IDK, maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him??) Swift certainly didn’t owe Travis a meet-and-greet at her place of work, but I can understand his disappointment as he seems like a fairly enthusiastic Swiftie.

As we continue to stay vigilant for any non-joking confirmation as to what, exactly, is (or isn’t!) going on between these two, for your reading pleasure, I’ve devoted some time to figuring out a little more about who this big, burly, professional ball-man and eager Taylor Swift fan is. Naturally, I began my investigation by asking some football-watching friends of mine, “Who is Travis Kelce???” What I learned was encouraging: He is good at football. As a “tight end,” he is good at protecting his quarterback, Mr. Patrick Mahomes, during offensive plays. (A sign he could also be good at protecting the oft-ambushed Taylor Swift???) And, in a league with stars like Aaron Rodgers and Rodgers’ bromance with Joe Rogan, Travis has, refreshingly enough, not said anything wildly, politically stupid (yet!). Cool.

Something else I learned about Travis through my own independent research: Historically, the man has loved to tweet, putting out such peak-2010 musings as, “These TV shows are hallarious!! Gotta love the entertainment of the television.” He also offers a fleeting glimpse of his type in a since-deleted, 2011 tweet that reads, “Women that have a sense of humer… #plus.” (An observation: The man loves phonetic spelling.) Like the rest of us during this particular time period, Travis was also down—very down—to overshare online: “I stay gettin straight dawged on Twitter by #oneofmyfollowers and she is sexy as hell!!!!” He is a man of passion: “The most powerful weapon on this earth is the human soul on fire! The passion of a man is the backbone to success!” His old tweets reveal he is also, apparently, a great enjoyer of physical comedy.

And relevant to Ms. Swift’s noted enjoyment of Christmas, Travis is also a fan of the holiday, specifically holiday music: “Their is nothing happier or more positive then Christmas music! I listen to it all year around, it just gets more intense this time of year!” he boldly declared in 2013.

Travis also likes to dance. His nickname has been “T-Rex since I was about 9 years old,” he once very vulnerably divulged. He is not amazing at baseball. And he says he loves his mother, who he describes as “an absolute angel” and, in that regard, the blueprint for what he’s looking for in a romantic partner, which, erm, OK.

The more of these truths I excavated, the more the question shifted from “Who is Travis Kelce?” to “What do Travis and Taylor talk about??” (if they talk at all—TBD). Travis’ old tweets, perhaps? The works of Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Charlotte Brontë? Or maybe the works of Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath, or any others who have inspired Swift’s famously literary lyrics?? Football?? (Swift is an Eagles fan.) Favorite Christmas songs?!

Of course, “What do Travis and Taylor talk about??” is only a relevant question if Swift and Travis are hanging out at all—and that, contrary to Jason’s little quips, remains to be confirmed.