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In This Issue

• Lessons of a Dancer’s Life
• Fast Times at Our Lady of Mercy Elementary
• Gulati Talks Soccer, Economics, and His Evil Alter Ego Zubil Dubabi
• Bleeding Candy Sweethearts
• 79 Ways To Fix Your Iraq
• 10-Year-Old Reviews IMDb’s Top Ten Movies of All Time
• A Good London Drinker Thinks How to Drink Hers
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Kinematics
• Cupid as a Young Teen
• Unadvised, Advising the Unadvisable
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Bless Your Heart
• On the Web, No One Knows You’re a Scientist
• Go Ask Alice!
• The Big News from the Big Town: Hollywood!
• The BWOG
• Bored at Butler
• THEY Watch

There are a few axioms that one can claim to know after about 20 years of interaction with other individuals. One: you cannot always do what you want, at the moment you want to do it, as oftentimes this leads to incarceration, physical and emotional harm, or odd looks from other people for the rest of your life. You can’t stand in line at the soup kitchen where you volunteer just because you’re hungry. Two: being nice does not always translate to other people being nice to you. Even if you always ask nicely for the salt/the phone/your pants/an address, there will inevitably be that jackass who hates “the way your voice always rises and squeaks a little at the end of the word ‘please.’” Three: no one likes you. Seriously, no one likes you.

Take a look back at all the awkward situations, the empty, hollow conversations you’ve endured, the terrible taste in music you have even to this day, and it’s fair to say that the sum total of your life’s social interactions is no more complicated than a high school dance. Saddening as it is, that hip-hopping clusterfuck of sweat, bad cologne, and inhibition is the most accurate microcosm of life you will ever find.

Consider Tim Hightower, a sophomore at Alexander Graham Bell Senior High School, who discovered firsthand the intricacies of the social framework he couldn’t know would hold fast for the rest of his life.

Tim arrived to his first high school dance wearing baggy jeans, a t-shirt covering everything between his neck, knees, and elbows, and untied “Timbs” (Timberland boots). Tim’s outfit was his first misstep. Tim is white. No one believes that Tim is “gangsta.” In fact, it is well-known at Bell High that Tim once got lost and ended up in the unfamiliar south side of his Bismarck suburb, where he was accosted by three black men and immediately ran from them, screaming, “Help, robbery! Help!” Interestingly, the three men were members of the First Baptist Church Gospel Choir, had just stepped out of church, and were still wearing their robes. Tim’s credibility (if he had had any to begin with) was instantly zapped. Would a white lab coat by itself convince me that someone is a doctor? Just because I can see his buttcrack in the gap between his too-low jeans and his flannel shirt, would I trust a man with my plumbing? Does possession of a gun and a uniform automatically equate to being an officer of the law? Tim’s dress was the first strike against him, but there was more to come.

When Tim heard the music, he decided that he would like to dance. He looked around and saw three unpaired girls, each at a different level on Tim’s personal scale of attractiveness. Almost instinctively, Tim approached the one whom he rated as “hot as balls” (why he would liken her to male genitalia is an entirely different story). Strike two. Tim had yet to learn of compromise: trying to grasp the reachable and steering clear of the unattainable. He did not realize that his target’s football player boyfriend had merely stepped away momentarily to grab some drinks for the two. Tim was rejected, rather harshly in front of the other girls. Years later, Tim would call upon this experience when he decided to run for president… of Lichtenstein (he won on a technicality; his opponent turned out to be a pomegranate).

Dejected, Tim sauntered over to his friends, who had congregated behind the blaring speakers. His friends are all members of the swim team. Strike three. Tim does not swim. In fact, he is afraid of water, having once slipped face-down into a puddle, whereupon he broke his Captain Planet lunch pail. This is a classic case of
“that guy” syndrome. You know who that person is in your group. And if you don’t, then that person is you. You know the type. The guy who hangs out almost exclusively with your sports team/club/activity/frat clique; the only problem is that he has nothing to do with the group’s common interest, which brought it together to begin with. That guy either vaguely knows one of the lower-tier members of the group, or he showed up to the first meeting of the group and never bothered to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Tim is unaware of his position within his circle of friends, which leaves him without knowledge that could have served him well years later, when he tried to hang out with the board of directors at his Fortune 500 employer. The executives were left wondering why the mail room boy kept showing up at their parties. Certain groups are supposed to work and socialize alone, sans intrusion.

You see, it is not always about the life-altering, eye-opening experiences that will clue you in as to how you should live your life. It is about how well you can relate to other people on a day-to-day basis. Tim forgot that in high school, you can’t be a poseur. He forgot that no matter how hard you try, the hot girl will never, ever speak to you, let alone go down on you in the bathroom. And he forgot that he was not, nor ever had been, a swimmer. In essence, he forgot to be himself—that is, a nerdy, white, uncoordinated, unathletic, mediocre high school student, whose only claim to fame is that someone once mistook him for Colin Hanks.

You must be aware of the context of your situations, and the high school dance provides your first and most harmless opportunity to see how you stack up in this social hierarchy we call life. You have to see where you stand and come to terms with the fact that you just may never be homecoming king (but you might have a chance to become a D&D god). Watch out for the pitfalls that could lead to your social demise (e.g. pride, ego, an unsubstantiated sense of self, etc.). And the next time you try to get some punch, don’t look like such a jackass when you do it.

Sure, there will always be other Tims out there who may not take the lessons they have learned and apply them to the life that they will lead past high school. But just remember that no one likes you, seriously.