Dirty Mustache Guy Sits Down With Wrong Tote Bag Girl at The Bridge
By Matt Romano
Toby tucked his white shirt into his thrifted jeans and threw an unbuttoned striped shirt over it. He laced up his Docs, fixed his center part, and then made his way over to The Bridge. As always, The Strokes played in his wired earbuds as he made his way over to MGC, looking like a mix between a character from Dazed and Confused and Hasan Piker.
Until this day, he had never questioned his staunch belief in the importance of masks. Now, poor Toby was overcome with a wave of fear as he looked out into a crowd of blonde, converse-wearing, Kramer’s tote bag-carrying, jean-flaring, crystal necklace-bearing, she/her’s and she/they’s of American University. He didn’t even know if she had a septum piercing. Any of them could be Jane from his Gov class who he had asked out to coffee.
He awkwardly lingered around the counter waiting for her to approach him, but in the end, Toby ended up making the fatal mistake of sitting with the wrong person. A recent study done by the University of Research on the Mathematics Of Mistakes shows that this is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem on campuses throughout the U.S. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2 out of every 5 Americans between the ages of 18 and 22 have begun to present themselves in a way to intentionally distinguish themselves from being like “other guys” or “other girls.” However, at places like AU, this percentage is much higher, causing some experts to grow worried about the future of fashion.
“This is actually a serious problem,” says fashion expert Danny Sleezbaull, “Pretty soon you’re gonna see brands like Vineyard Vines becoming the new alt in a post-ironic way. It’s gonna be like: ‘Look I’m so cool that I can wear preppy white people clothes and most people will still think I’m a communist because of my piercings or tattoos or whatever.”
While the future of fashion may be bleak, its current progression towards homogeneity allows us to easily categorize people, which is good if you’re like me and you like to judge people. Some may argue that someone's appearance does not reflect their personality, or that judging them for it is unethical, but they are wrong.
In regards to Toby, there is a simple solution to his problem: don’t do on-campus dates. Some people complain that a metro/bus ride might be awkward, but let’s be honest here, if you can’t make it through the bus ride, you can’t do the date. Nothing is more of a turnoff than walking out of a first date and into the liminal spaces of MGC, where everything (and everyone) looks exactly the same.