Beautiful Men
Today I was outside Moffitt Library and I was faced with a dilemma that has been plaguing me quite often lately. As soon as I locked up my old Centurion road bike to the serpentine-shaped bike rack, I began digging through my bag in search of my ID card which was my golden ticket into the library.
I am not sure why Moffitt Library requires a Cal ID to get in through the doors, whereas the much more prestigious Doe Library does not. In fact, none of the other libraries require a Cal ID to get in. Not the Music Library, nor the library in the VLSB, nor the Law Library, nor the Architecture Library…then it suddenly dawned on me that my little rectangle of plastic with my bus pass and my photo plastered on the front was not a Cal ID card, but a passport. Entering Moffitt Library entailed crossing the border…! I’m not sure what that makes the Free Speech Cafe. If UC Berkeley is America, and Moffitt is Mexico…no, that can’t be the case because there is no country that shares a border with both los Estados Unidos and Mexico…clearly, then, UC Berkeley is not America. Perhaps UC Berkeley is France, Moffitt is Italy, and FSM cafe is Switzerland! In any event, this analogy is pointless and has nothing to do with the title and intended subject of this blog post.
As I was reaching into my bag for my ID card passport, I noticed a really beautiful man. A really beautiful man. He has piercing blue eyes, which immediatly made me think of a diary entry I wrote when I was in elementary school about a boy who had “blue whirlpool eyes” (yup, I still remember the diary entries that I wrote when I was 8 years old). This man had eyes that were pretty much whirlpools. I was about to compliment him on his lovely whirlpool eyes, and BAM- the dilemma. I was literally about to compliment him (my mouth opened- I think he noticed), when I realized that if I told him, “Hello! I think you have beautiful eyes!” he would 1) be completely taken aback, 2) absolutely nonchalant- he is used to such words of praise, or 3) perhaps he would not have understood me because he is in fact an Italian tourist whose knowledge of English is restricted to “spaghetti, pasta, Hello, thank you” and “porcupine”. What prevented me from spouting out, “YOU HAVE NICE EYES!” was not the fear that he wouldn’t be able to understand me, however, but rather the realization that if I did compliment him he probably would be startled and then feel obligated to return the compliment. Maybe not. He could have just smiled and uttered “grazie”. I wondered what part of Italy he was from. All of this was running through my head as I stared at him for about 2 seconds, and he held my gaze. As soon as I had noticed his eyes, however, I was already plowing through border patrol as I presented my passport to the man at the desk inside of Moffitt. His eyes weren’t quite as beautiful. So long, beautiful-eye-man, so long.
Btw, I realize that there are websites for these sort of encounters, such as likealittle.com, but why can’t we just parade up to people who we find attractive and tell them that we think so?! I have seen on the LikeaLittle website a posting that went something like, “Hey cute boy wearing the Berkeley sweatshirt. I see you sitting on a bench outside Dwinelle. Look to your left! Please oh please, just look at me!” Why is it that we feel like we can send out such urgent pleas over the internet, yet we quiver in fear at the prospect of confronting the attractive person face-to-face? Imagine a world where no one was afraid to voice their flirtatious tendencies…would world chaos ensue? Would lectures be interrupted by hormone-crazed students who felt a pang of desire towards their classmates? Imagine a dull physics lecture being interrupted by a sudden cry, “HEY YOU!! YEAH YOU- IN THE YELLOW SWEATER- I THINK YOU’RE CUTE!”. That would most definitely lighten the mood in an otherwise dreary discussion on rotational inertia and wave oscillations. On that note- it’s time for me to stop rambling and go do my physics homework. By the way, I like your shirt.
