COLUMN: There are more scenes than the dating scene
When I first came to college, I knew three things: pudding is delicious, cats don’t eat pickles and girls have cooties.
After careful investigation, however, I’ve come to find that number two is false.
I tried to learn more about number three, but my wife won’t let me do experiments on enough different subjects for a good case study. I guess the world may never know.
But really, that’s OK. People all go through their lives worrying about enough problems with the opposite sex.
You know the problems I’m talking about. I’m sure you or your roommates have muttered a few of the following:
“Girls are confusing.”
“Guys are dumb.”
“Women are confusing.”
“Boys are dumb.”
As a humor columnist, I’m required by law to say all of the above is true. However, I, unlike most, don’t blame genetics.
Men and women are like praying mantises and scorpions, perfectly fine in the wild, but if you put us in the metaphoric jar of dating and a give it proverbial shake, things get messy.
I often hear people complain about how dating in Logan isn’t dating, it’s just “hanging out.”
While this is true in some cases and I can see it being annoying if you’re looking for more – although I do think hanging out is good practice for marriage when you basically just “hang out” with one person for the rest of your life – I remind everyone that there are scenes out there that are a thousands times worse than the “hanging out.”
The stalking scene: This is an easy scene to break into. You don’t need confidence or anything else that give you worth as a person; all you need is a target, some patience and a decent pair of binoculars.
I’ll admit I was big into this scene when I first came to USU. It wasn’t entirely my fault; I’ve always been a very sneaky guy with good night vision. The rest just sort of fell into place.
The “party” scene: Not the party scene you’re thinking about. I’m talking about the “party” scene.
The kind of get-togethers you have to put quotation marks around to be legally able to call it a party.
These usually involve selling something to the guest: Tupperware, beads, shrunken human heads, that sort of thing.
The other “hanging out” scene: This scene contains all the fat people who wear clothes not built for their body size and always have something hanging out.
It’s a gross scene.
The complaining scene: No matter how rockin’ life here in Logan gets, some people will complain about it. You can’t reason with them. Don’t even try.
They hate everything and they like it that way.
It’s like goths without the snarky, black T-shirts.
The nacho cheese/gummy worm fetish scene: Don’t ask.
So if you’re lucky enough to avoid these scenes of disarray, you may still find yourself stuck in the dating scene. You may ask, “So what should I do?”
I’m glad you asked. I may not know much about dating, but I know how to get out.
The secret to winning the dating game is the same to winning video games: cheat codes.
For example, if you look up twice, look down twice, lean to the left, then to the right, then to the left again and then go back to the right, followed by jumping then shooting your gun, you’ll get 30 chances to go out with a guy before he can dump you.
Or you can get to the end of your second date, and when you drop her off at the doorstep, do a super-jump over her roof to the secret Warp Zone, where a green pipe will take you to the bonus round where all the girls are in love with you.
Speaking of secret warp zones, it’s Mario’s 21rst birthday and I’m off to celebrate, because I’m married and can count it as a date.
Geek on.
Steve Shinney is a senior in computer science. He doesn’t like long walks on the beach and is pretty sure you don’t either. Comments can be sent to
steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.