COLUMN: All I see is Jailbait

‘Pervert’ is a relative term. Like ‘drunk’ or ‘angry.’

Some people think they are drunk when the world starts moving a little bit. We call those people lightweights.

Others still won’t admit they’re drunk even after they’ve crawled into Beto’s – God rest its soul – dressed as Barney, trying to sing the “I love you” song in Spanish and ended up eating their mixed breakfast burrito, wrapper and all, while lounging on the condiment bar in the middle of the restaurant.

People also have different definitions of angry, especially when it comes to rating how angry other people are. Very chilled-out people probably think someone screaming monumental strings of four letter words at the top of their lungs at a computer in the lab that won’t read their jump drive is pretty angry.

Others, mainly Pantera fans, know the computer person is just a little bit upset. For Pantera people, real anger involves driving a semi truck through the wall of a convenience store while listening to “Walk,” just because they weren’t satisfied with the amount of Funions in the bag they just bought.

What was the other word … oh yeah, pervert.

Some may say looking at naked girls/guys, depending on preference, is perverted. Others are less easily offended, and it takes a skanky combination of things like pandas, a bag of Milano cookies, a fire hydrant and six clothespins for them to draw that line of perversion.

This week, I found that like anything, your definition depends on a few things – namely age and experience.

Don’t understand where I’m going yet? Well you must not be old, or you must not have been on campus all week.

I feel like a dirty old man – some people who know me probably would say that’s a compliment compared to some of the things I actually am, but those people are drunks. I’m only 21, but after a week of looking at the new crop of freshmen, I feel like I’m the creepy, handsy PE teacher at some junior high school.

For the most part, you’d think it’s safe to assume anyone walking around with a backpack in the halls of Old Main, the Taggart Student Center or any other building on campus is at least 18 years old. You know what happens when you assume. This time it has less to do about making an ass of anyone, and more about getting my ass thrown in jail for hitting on a girl who looked like she was 13, but was actually in college, so you assumed she was 18.

This is where the ‘pervert’ is a relative term thing comes in. I feel like a perv hitting on these freshmen girls. There, I said it. I’m scared of jailbait, and to me, most of the new freshman girls I’ve seen look like they’re straight off the bus and ready for their first day of middle school.

Sophomores don’t probably have this problem. They’re just barely out of high school.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to hook up with freshmen girls – that’s what God created freshmen girls for, otherwise they’d all start out as sophomores or juniors – but I can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe it’s the fact that I feel like a pedophile just being on campus. Or maybe it’s just some sense of morality welling up in me that my parents always hoped would show up, but I was sure didn’t exist.

Maybe I know it’s not realistic. We’d have nothing to talk about. They’d want to talk about the latest issue of Tiger Beat or Seventeen magazine, and I’d try to talk to them about Newsweek, The New Yorker or Rolling Stone – no, I don’t actually read the first two.

I guess I could put some effort in. Get some headgear. Buy an old Hanson CD. Brush up on my MTV reality TV. Anything to take me back to my early teens and hopefully spark some conversation about overarching late-middle-school, early-high-school things.

I’m just going to stop. I’ve dug myself enough of a hole here. Now even if I did make that conscious decision to go ahead and pursue freshmen girls and risk going to jail, this column just burnt those bridges.

There’s nothing like screwing yourself over.

David Baker is a senior majoring in print journalism. Please be nice to him if he tries to hit on you. Comments can be sent to da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu.