𝘚𝘰 much juvenile behavior on this campus.

I’m surrounded by immaturity.

Someone was playing that Clay Aiken song that goes,

🎵 If I was invisible

🎵 Then I could just watch you in your room.

Am I the only one that finds that creepy?

So I’m doing my homework in the library and inadvertently listening to the people in the room. I became an auditory witness to one of the saddest fumbling attempts at flirtation I’ve heard since I taught junior high school.

He was hanging out with her because he likes her. She was giving him opening after opening to admit this, and yet he kept missing them. Instead, he did the usual stupid junior-high stuff: bragging and teasing. The bragging part was when he was talking about his good qualities (“I’m really good at focusing on my work.” “Oh yeah, so am I.” “Yeah, when I’m working on something I just stick with it until I get it done.” This conversation was taking place while they were working. Ah, irony) or showing off (“Check this out.” “Ewww!” “Heh-heh.”), both of which were less disturbing than the “smack ’em if you like ’em” behavior (“Ow, stop that.” “I’m just playing.”) which takes on a whole different meaning if you’ve ever watched your dad beat your mom unconscious like I have.

This is the difference between boys and men. Men realize that women like positive attention more than they like attention in general. Men know they should give compliments. If a person isn’t emotionally mature enough to be honest and admit something as simple and non-committal as, “I think you’re great; I like spending time with you; I value your company,” then that person is too young to date and should expect nothing but traumatic messy breakups until the phase is over.

I resisted the temptation to turn around and shout, “She likes you, okay, and you’re blowing it. Tell her what you feel.” The last time I got into someone’s business like that, the guy was so embarrassed that he denied everything—then he mourned for the next two days about how I had blown his chance with her.

So much juvenile behavior on this campus…

So I’m telling this story at dinner and M, who is studying to go into ministry and should be one of the people fighting gossip on this campus, wanted to know who these people were. He wanted names. I wasn’t about to give them. “There’s enough gossip on this campus,” I said, “without adding to it. I don’t need to embarrass them unnecessarily.”

SO much juvenile behavior on this campus…