'Don't Remind Me'

AH, MAY. The month of blooming flowers, walks along the Charles, singing birds. A time of joy and bliss, a time when, in an almost spiritual harmonic convergence, we are confronted with the all the joys of Reading Period, Exam Period and Spring Formals.

From both final exams and spring formals I derive an almost perverse delicious satisfaction at the immolation of my soul. In the first, I am reminded of the futility of a semester's worth of academic nose-grinding. In the other, my utter incompetence at romance is gleefully rubbed in my nose.

I am convinced, in my slightly egocentric world view, that the entire Harvard community stages the annual spring formal season primarily to remind me of my blundering attempts at establishing a relationship.

You laugh, but listen: Every weekend there are multitudes of things for you and your lovebird to hold hands through: movies, theatre, Narcissus, Kroks, intramural volleyball games, Earth and Planetary Science colloquia. But do I get personal invitations to these events? Noooo.

You all kindly leave me alone. And as I pore over statistical physics on Saturday nights, I feel perfectly at ease, able to maintain at least the illusion that the rest of you are similarly employed.

BUT then the Lowell House Happiness Committee Co-chairs rub their hands deviously and plot their cruel act. In the mail I receive a little, embossed, parchment-colored invitation: "You and a guest," it taunts. Now I face a dilemma. Either I have to go out and actively search for a date, or I am faced with the prospect of acknowledging that I am a loser staying home on formal night. What to do?

One option is to ask six different women to go with me (one at a time, of course). After receiving half a dozen "I think I'm going to be busy deciding on courses for next fall," I will be satisfied.

The problem with this strategy is that some woman looking for a charitable activity to list on her law school application might actually accept. Then I would have to go, and being at the formal is worse than being rejected.

Think about it: I have to dress up in fancy clothes, anathema number one. In front of hundreds of my peers I must dance to music that I never heard during my small-town upbringing. It is probably more painful for others to watch me humiliate myself on the dance floor than for me to do it.

Worse yet, during the non-dancing interludes I am expected to carry on a conversation. "What am I supposed to talk about?" screams in my brain over and over.

Well, you're not allowed to talk about classes--it's Reading Period. You can't mention summer because I don't want to give my speech about how I tried to get this research position but I was a little late applying for the grant, etc., etc. You can't say, "So, how 'bout those new University health guidelines?

Not wanting to appear too materialistic, I haven't even mentioned the expense involved. By the time I pay for tickets, clothes, flowers, dinner, a haircut and Dr. Scholl's foot deoderant, I've spent enough to cover foreign debt burdens of several small Third-World nations.

I'm not suggesting that we abolish spring formals. All you hand-fondling, back-massaging, emotionally adjusted gaze-into-each-other's-eyes couples--please, go spend lots of money and dance to music I can't comprehend. But please don't invite me when you know I can't get a date and then act surprised when you find out that I already know what courses I'm taking next fall.