Italicized is editized.

The one, the only, the original

I will be the first to admit that there are certainly times where it is very difficult to be a single guy at Harding University. Not difficult as in “Man, I can’t keep the girls off me with a stick”, but more in the “Well, once again it’s a Friday night of cafeteria food by myself” sense. And that, my dear audience, is a sad Friday night.
So here I am in the very awkward position of having a group of friends on campus that are all dating each other. Apparently I’m some weird sort of rabbit’s foot when it comes to love. Rabbits feet may be lucky for everybody else, but sure not the rabbit. The last two sentences originally just said “Apparently I’m something of an aphrodisiac”, but apparently I can’t say aphrodisiac…
Now mind you, this doesn’t bother me any. I’m the permanent odd-numbered wheel, which makes for interesting seating arrangements at restaurants, but other than that it’s got a lot of perks. For starters, whenever I go out to a big group thing with all my friends, I’m no longer mere Aaron Rushton, single guy… I become “Aaron Rushton: Stand-up (sit down, most of the time) Comedian!”
I don’t ever have to watch what I say around my female friends because I’m not dating any of them. What’s the worst they’re going to do, go out with me? I have male friends that live in constant fear that they’re going to repeat something I said and then they’d be single, which would just throw off the balance of the whole group.
I’m a pretty hard-headed guy, I’ll admit. It takes me a long time to learn a lesson sometimes. Ask my parents, they’ll attest to this with little to no hesitation whatsoever. But one thing that I’ve got going for me in my stubbornness and all is that if you repeat something enough times, I’ll eventually grasp the concept.
So, according to, say, every girl I’ve ever known, I am not only the funniest guy on the planet (this, I already knew), I’m also the nicest, sweetest, greatest, cutest (turned out she was myopic), most caring, most gentlemanly, most rugged, most manly, most lovable, most wonderful man to have ever walked the face of God’s green Earth.
Or so I’ve been told.
Over the Christmas break a few years back, I received a phone call from Kelly, a sweet girl from my high school. She sounded pretty rough around the emotional edges. She asked me to come over and cheer her up some. I was fresh out of clown make-up and my unicycle was in the shop, so I realized I’d have to rely on actual personality. I went over to her house and found out that she was absolutely miserable because she had recently gone through a nasty break-up with her jerk of a boyfriend. I never liked the guy in the first place.
So, for the next seven hours I was Kelly’s teddy bear. She cried into my shoulder (it was soaking wet when I left her house), complained to me about how all men are evil and she never wants another boyfriend again and she’s going to run off to join a convent even though she’s not catholic and she just hates men so much because they’re so stupid and all they ever do is cause her pain and it’s not fair that her friends can have nice boyfriends and all the guys she knows are jerks and think that just because they’re good-looking they can run all over any girl that shows the slightest sign of interest and why can’t there be more guys like me?
Being the nice guy I am, I figured I’d try to help Kelly feel a bit better about herself and take her out on a nice date, and so I did. We ate a nice romantic candlelit dinner at Burger King (I brought a bathroom candle and lit it in the ashtray) and went to see some mind-numbing chick flick. I figured I’d be nice and take her to something she wanted to see, rather than whatever big-budget holiday explosion festival was going on two screens over.
Now here’s where the story gets confusing. I took Kelly home and said “Hey, let’s do that again sometime. Well, except for the whole thing about you being depressed for 7 hours.”
As part of my commitment to truth in journalism, I assure you, none of the following is made up: “Aaron, you are the perfect guy. You are going to make some very lucky girl very happy some day. I’d do anything to be able to have a guy like you… But I don’t think I can date you.”
What? Wait… What? She’d do anything to have a guy like me, but the real deal is no good? Why accept a pale imitation? The One, the Only, the Original is still up for grabs!
I believe I’ve figured it out, though. Girls (changed to Women) are intimidated by perfection. It’s the only solution I can come up with. Every girl (again, changed to woman) I’ve ever known has told me I’m the best guy around, but they’ve all got some twisted desire to date lesser forms of filth (changed to someone less worthy They edited out my Boondock Saints reference!). Oh well, beats me.

Aaron Rushton is the humor columnist for The Bison, and everything he says should be taken with a very large and very sarcastic grain of salt. Aaron is not only funny, he’s also sensitive, enjoys long walks in the rain, knows how to cook, is good with children, is an Eagle Scout, and has all the free time in the world. He can be reached at (501)305-8453, or by e-mailing AaronRushton@hotmail.com.