Awkward...

Awkward. That is the best singular word I can use to describe the 57-minute flight I just walked off of. It is almost that airlines in today’s society are designing trips for passengers under that fashion only. Awkward. Nothing but.

Airlines initiate your trip in that manner from the very beginning as you are removing your belt, shoes, watch, earrings, glasses, necklaces, fillings, pacemakers and metal plates from the left side of your head before you pass through the doorway of death and its annoying beep, pointing you out to the rest of the airport that you could possibly have a handgun made out of tinfoil gun wrappers. Awkward. Yes, I know.

This continues on as you are then awarded the 18 inches of cubic space that they call your seat. I honestly don’t know how some people fit in those things, myself included! As you try and proportionate your body into some difficult yet random position you have an upset Grandmother giving dirty looks from behind as you keep bumping her seat, meanwhile a drop dead gorgeous girl from your Comm 3220 class laughs at your clumsiness in the seat next to you.

Move to facing the front of the plane while the stewardess babbles on a hundred words a second of instruction into the microphone that no one on the entire plane including the pilot himself has any clue what she just said about keeping your table in the upright position with your seatbelt fashioned as we take off. Or did she say please label tight possums with a deep welt in passions sake? Is this flight getting even more awkward?

Try and shift your focus to a more positive direction than in your crammed position, pull out the SkyMall magazine in hopes of finding some kind of neat gadget or device that can entertain hopes of purchasing for at least 7 minutes. While thumbing through the pages you only feel more and more awkward looking at things such as a neon-light underwater children’s keyboard, and an atomic world time watch that can even pass the LSAT along with telling time. Of course I can’t afford 9 payments of $99.99 to purchase things like that or a voice-activated R2-D2 robot designed specifically to keep ice cream from melting!

There is something even more awkward about sitting on an airplane; opening up to the person next to you. It is beyond me why you do not care one bit about personal seclusion and privacy while on a flight. For some reason every single awkward individual imaginable wants to tell the most tiny and unimportant life stories to you while in the air. So thank you Gail, from Nibley, who lives on a farm with llama’s and alpaca’s, while her husband with 12 fingers works on writing a book about the history of the toothpick. My life is more enriched now because of that information.

Awkward. That is all there is to it. Between the handfuls of peanuts, cramped layout of bathroom, and annoyance of two-year olds sitting on their mom’s laps the entire time screaming that they want a fruit roll up all flight long, I have come to the conclusion that anything about flying puts a sour taste in my mouth even if it cuts any travel time in half.

However, I must say that the most awkward thing about the entire trip was as the pilot was making introductions about the flight to myself and the rest of the other passengers, when he made the actual statement, and I quote.

“I’m going to turn the time over to your smoking hot flight attendant Sammy right now.”

I looked up from where I was sitting anticipating what the pilot had previewed, when as I did, I stared right back into Sammy’s eyes gazing longfully into mine.

Sammy was a guy.

Nice Guys Finish Last

That is it! I have had it! I am at the end of my rope! In the words of the legendary gothic Alice Cooper, “No More Mr. Nice Guy!”



Now I am no Dr. Love as we have had in semesters past, and I normally don’t spend 7-inch high columns discussing the affairs of the heart, but I definitely have some beef to throw down this week. 



One of the most confusing, gargantuan enigmas that is baffling my brain this week is the fact that in this day and age, to romance the heart of a girl, I have to be the most inconsiderate, thoughtless, selfish jerk ever created. Only then will the ladies begin to fall for me. At least that seems to be the case. 



Now after being raised by 11 sisters in a home overloaded with estrogen, I figured I had some sort of advantage with the ladies. Or at least some sort of special insight as to how they work and what they want. Apparently that is not the case. 



I have tried it all. I have tried opening the doors, pulling out the chairs, paying for the meals, and everything else in between being respectful to the opposite sex. I have even done the I’ll-shutup-and-listen-to-everything-you-say-to-prove-that-I-care routine. But it makes no difference! It doesn’t matter. Girls don’t seem to care that I care. Girls just want a jerk. 



Girls, please correct me if I am (hopefully) wrong. You say you want someone who is a little bit sensitive, someone who listens to you, someone whose life doesn’t revolve around how big his truck is or how massive the buck he shot last week was. That is total bull. All of that talk about sensitive listening guys gets shoved back in my face when a short guy in a lifted F-350 and a four-pointer drives up and whistles at her booty. 



Guys these days have no respect for girls whatsoever, not in the least bit. They don’t care about how she feels about something or how she wants to be treated. All they care about is “getting a piece” this weekend then bragging about it to their buddies. Forget about actually caring about a girl. Women are just there for physical entertainment and apartment cleaners.

Call me old-fashioned, but that’s not the way women should be looked at. They are not supposed to be viewed as an icon off a Playboy cover or a slave trapped in a kitchen catering to a man’s every need. Women are supposed to be treated like queens, with us the men, the protectors, being there to take care of them, not the other way around. And if you think that it’s girly for a guy like me to have this set of values, you have a big problem. One who is 6-foot-5, 240 pounds to be specific. 



And if you think that I’m writing this column to get a date you’re absolutely wrong again. If a girl is only looking for big trucks and Gold’s Gym muscles, how is a two-column opinion piece from a non-meathead journalist going to make the slightest difference? 



You think I am expecting a throng of girls to parade my office saying, “You are so wrong Brock, I want a sensitive guy who will listen to me and will care about what I’m doing with my life. Let’s go out.” I don’t think so. 



And so it begins… I am going to be the biggest jerk from now on in order to get girls. No respect, insults aplenty, a complete disregard for what girls “really care about.” I am going to go buy the biggest truck I can find, put the biggest tires on it, get the biggest lift I can get, shoot the biggest buck in all of Utah, and then go up to a crowd of girls and brag about all of the cool stuff I have now. Problem is, I’ll probably still be stuck where I am now: single and confused.

Valentine's Day a Waste of Time

I think that this upcoming Sunday has got to be one of the most depressing days in the history of the world. I'm referring to the day we're all experiencing at the moment, Valentine’s Day, also known by the much more appropriate name, Singles’ Awareness Day.

See, the problem with SAD, ironic that the acronym is sad, is that if you don't have someone to love on this day overly bombarded by Necco conversation hearts and red and pink cardboard cutouts of Cupid, you feel like the No. 1 biggest loser ever created. You walk around seeing all the delivered flowers and romantic couples, and you can't help but feel like either vomiting or eating a boatload of ice cream to compensate for not having someone to say corny names like “boo-boo kitty face” to.

It's as if the whole world is pointing a finger at you saying, “HA! You don't have a significant other to surprise you with flowers, kisses and stuffed bears made out of chocolate. So I'm going to stand here all day making fun of you, you worthless, non-committal stay-at-home-on-a-Saturday-night-and-eat-Doritos-until-you-puke pathetic excuse of a wannabe Valentine’s lover!” Can you see how painful this must be to some people?

Why is there a holiday dedicated to being in love? This goes against everything moral and right that exists in the free world. Why can't there be a holiday focused on being single? Like National No Relationship Pride Day, that sounds like a pretty good holiday to me. We need a day where everyone just sits around and relishes in the fact that we all don't have to be involved with someone else and can just contently savor or singleness. Our non-commitment can be our gratification. Who's on my side for this idea? Probably everyone who isn't enjoying today’s overly emphasized waste of a holiday.

See, the problem with Valentine’s Day is that no one wants to look bad in front of his or her peers, not having a lover to rely on during this stressful 24-hour period. In fact, according to BrainCandy.net, 15 percent of single women send themselves flowers just to appease their own loneliness and not look bad in front of their friends and family. How pathetic is that? That's like buying a boatload of candy on Halloween and sitting at home all night in a costume, eating yourself silly out of an old pillowcase. Why on earth would someone do such a thing? Because the Valentine gods mockingly scorn the fact that you are one pathetic loser.

And what's even worse, the survey continued on to mention that about 3 percent of pet owners will buy something for their pets on Valentine’s Day. Do you see what this is doing to people? This holiday is damaging so many people's self-esteem that they try to compensate for lack of love by giving flowers, candy or a singing telegram to their pets. Are we that desperate? We must be to be catering a candlelight dinner for our chihuahua.

As my roommate Matt so adequately put it, Valentine’s Day is a holiday created by Hallmark to monopolize the fraudulent fondness that so many imitation couples create for themselves in order to not feel humiliated by the man-made monstrosity we know as Valentine's Day. According to Hallmark, around 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards will be exchanged this year. Talk about a waste of money. But hey, at least your loved one/pet/self will know that you care right?

I guess there are a few advantages to not having a girlfriend this year. As the rest of the lovey-dovey couples fawn all over each other and waste hundreds of dollars on flowers, expensive dinners and the like, I will be content to saving that money for a far greater purpose. Like buying the gallon of rocky road ice cream I'll be eating all night while I feel like a fool for not having someone. Now shut up and let me wallow in my singularity.