The Tale of A.
A. (not his real initial) was a fellow linguistics major, who had two classes with me and Melyngoch one fall semester. The first one was a large, early-morning lecture class with a couple hundred students. The second one was a small afternoon elective, with only half dozen students, plus occasional visitors.
A. was charming and relatively attractive, but he had an odd quirk: He would only talk to the hottest girl in the room. One moment we’d be in a deep, philosophical conversation. The next, he’d have dropped me for a classmate who’d just walked in the room.
In some ways, it was like a perverse exercise in logic. (If A. will talk to B. over C., but D. over B., who’s the least attractive?) In our small afternoon class, the hierarchy was fairly easy to pin down: R. (an intriguing artist) came first, then Melyngoch (with her ever-amazing eye shadow), then me, then E., who was shy and serious. However, none of us could hold a candle to M., the blonde bombshell from our morning lecture class, who really just wanted to drop out of BYU to become a dental hygienist. (If Melyngoch and I saw A. in the mornings when he was chatting up M., he pretended not to know us.)
As much as I appreciate behavior guided by logical consistency, I think I prefer people possessed of a little more kindness and a little less sleaze.
