A Quick Post

I am sitting in the Learning Commons, a big computer lab on campus that houses the Writing Center, the Tutoring Center, etc. I've been here for the last hour, doing my Writing Center duties. Across from me is a tall, handsome kid from the basketball team. Supposedly, he's working on math homework, but, in reality, what he's doing is holding his flirting office hours. Girl after girl -- almost all blonde, almost all really attractive -- are coming up to him and coming on to him. It's the weirdest thing. It's like they're all gazelles waiting to take their turn at the watering hole or something. They walk up, touch him somehow, pretend to ask about class or an assignment or the game. He teases them. They pretend to protest through a sheen of glowing satisfaction that he likes them enough to tease. They jabber for a few minutes and then the girl moves on, making room for the next in line. The sad thing is, the good-looking blonde girl that's sitting next to him who is actually trying to do her homework with him just has to sit there and endure it as these others encroach on territory she clearly thought she'd marked for the day.

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it - not this close for this long. As a kid who was nerdy in high school and super awkward and abrasive in college, I just want to slap this kid in the head and say, "Do you have any idea what's happening here? Are you aware you have some kind of chick-magnet superpower?" It's so clear this is just his every day existence.

I also want to slap him and every girl that noses up to him and say, "Don't you ever dare tell your teacher you didn't have time to finish an assignment ever again. If you spent half the time you spend on this flirty, sickening BS on doing your homework, you'd be a Fullbright Scholar by now!"

I'm fascinated, but, at the same time, I just want them to shut the freak up!