I know, even I’m shocked.
In a place as gloom and doom as UC Berkeley, it’s hard to attract people organically nowadays. I’ve tried every rational method to land a date with my crushes: intensely astral projecting to communicate my flirtation, making eye contact once and then avoiding them at all costs on campus for six months, liking their Instagram stories, and mumbling an intelligible word or two if I’m feeling super confident. I guess the universe answered my long-ignored prayers when I was approached by five beautiful women right outside GBC and Dwinelle this past week.
It began when I was walking back from my psychology class about perception (specifically the theory of delusion and how we distort our self-importance) and an angelic girl with flowing brown hair, a radiantly warm smile, and an oddly otherworldly voice holding a little brown book stopped me in my tracks. She lifted the book almost beckoningly, and waded towards me through a small crowd on Sproul that appeared to just spontaneously part for her. She eyed me up and down, almost in a scrutinizing way, but with an intense look of pure adoration – somehow judgement day and the L word simultaneously.
I knew what was happening – this was the day. She was going to ask me out. Fear not! The things boomers tell you about surface-level dating in our generation are untrue. Love still exists – after a mere minute of talking, she asked me what I believed in and what my purpose in life was. Talk about a woman who knows what she wants! I know honesty is sexy, so I explained that spiritually, I’m a little lost right now. She told me not to worry, and that she could guide me… hot. I’d never talked to a girl who was so good at asking questions – she was so engrossed in my lack of faith that she let me ramble on and on while analyzing, no, listening, to my life story. At the end of our conversation, she just pounced on the opportunity to ask for my number. A little bashful, I typed it in her phone, and went about my day.
I suppose that week was my lucky streak; four other people with the same warm aura and strangely similar philosophical proclivities approached me over the next few days to learn about my deep values as a human being. Guess my demeanor just screams “likes flirty deep talks” these days.
After telling one that I didn’t believe in God but I believed in love, she laughed, and looked at me with disgust – but I’m sure it was her conflicting attraction to me. They didn’t mind that I told them I’d already been approached by their kind before, even asking me who the other clandestine lovers were, as if they would somehow know them by name. At the end of that week, I received five identical texts cryptically asking me out. How mysterious! Interesting… but I wasn’t bothered.
I agreed to go out with one of them, who took me to an undisclosed location. This was shaping up to be an exciting first date! When I finally got there, you’d never guess what happened. All five people were there, greeting me with open arms, and reciting some indecipherable incantation from the Bible.