Columnist reflects on Valentines day
by Aly Gordon ’13
Ouch!”
You feel it, that sudden yet oh-so-familiar prick, stinging the back of your neck with a burning intensity. Fuming, you turn around, though the feeling fast subsides as you lock eyes with a random stranger. In this very moment, the birds begin their ebullient chirp, an orchestra plays its a tune, and everything somehow smells of roses: You’ve been hit.
Cupid, armed with his famous golden arrow and rather revealing ensemble, is out on the prowl, targeting you and me, and the entire student body, for that matter. Though certainly brimming with good intent, his goal—to aid the high school’s hopeless romantics in their quest for love— has gone awry: students have begun to take Cupid’s work one notch too far, subjecting innocent bystanders to what is commonly referred to as “PDA.”
For all the hermitlike folks out there, PDA stands for Public Displays of Affection, ranging from the subtle holding-of-hands to full-on hallway make out sessions. Because of this variability, a line must be drawn: What is appropriate for school and what is not?
You see them all the time—those adorable yet envy-inducing couples, happily strolling with hands clasped, eyes full of a tender lightheartedness. This variant of PDA is generally accepted, but is often overshadowed by another, far more extreme form of PDA—a form which often puts average students in sticky situations.
For example: With textbook in hand and backpack at the ready, you plan on quickly swapping binders between third and fourth period, an ordinarily simple task. However, you soon find that your locker is a hub of activity. A pair of canoodlers are somehow—whether it be by some bizarre gravitational pull or by your own bad luck—drawn to your locker, unaware of your presence. We’ve all been there, done that, forced to choose between two equally-awkward options: You must either maneuver around the couple, inconspicuously squeezing around their compressed bodies, or utter a polite yet assertive “excuse me,” hoping they get the picture.
Don’t get me wrong. I love those cheesy, yet oh-so-addictive ’80s romance flicks as much as the next gal; however, I often wonder if our school’s oblivious couples are trapped in one such dream world, unaware that they are not, in fact, characters in a Jon Hughes movie. Sure, I understand that he or she is the apple of your eye, the peanut butter to your jelly, the Rogaine to your Nicolas Cage. That’s simple. What I don’t understand, though, is why this infatuation cannot wait until after school or when you go home. Would you not agree that any other venue, whether it be a quiet Italian restaurant or a quaint coffee shop, is much more charming than the loud, crowded hallways? But hey, what do I know— maybe some see fluorescent lights, staphylococcus bacteria and linoleum floors as romantic.