Who is a true fan?

So I'm at a bar in Albuquerque this week watching the Eagles-Bears game (um, we're not talking about the game) and I met this other kid who's a birds fan. The thing is, he's not from Philly. He has no link to Philly. He's been there once in his life. But yet he's an Eagles fan. I had to ask him why, and his answer was that he's been a fan since the Cunningham days. Sooo basically that's not an answer.
This got me thinking. I don't know if I get anyone just 'becoming' an Eagles fan. They're not a sexy team like the Cowboys, Niners or Steelers. We've never had a period where we were ever the best team in the league. Sad as it is, as a birds fan from birth you're pretty much setting yourself up for a lifetime full of pain. The thing is, if you meet an Eagles fan you can't accuse them of being a front-runner or anything like that cause, well, we have nothing to front run. Any Eagles fan you meet is suffering to a certain extent. But for me, a fan-base is built upon the history of the team and the town. You suffer together as a city and it builds a sort of camaraderie. You pass someone in the street who's wearing your team's jersey and you give them that little nod of solitude, a sign that you are brothers united by your sports team. If you're a Philly sports fan you live in agony not just because the Eagles are struggling this season, but because the city as a whole is in a collective championship drought. This isn't a feeling you can explain. You pretty much have to experience it, and part of being an Eagles fan is knowing, embracing, loving this pain. You just want it to go away. If you didn't live in Philadelphia at any point in your life, can you truly know this feeling? And without experiencing this feeling of ineptitude, can you really say that you're an Eagles fan? It's like being a Red Sox, Cubs or Maple Leaf fan... the pain of losing is part of the mystique of the team; it's why each win and each loss mean so much to us. As much as I love seeing the proverbial 'Eagles nation' spread its wings, it begs asking the question, can these people actually be called "true" Eagles fans?