Post by brucespringstain on Dec 16, 2018 14:33:33 GMT -5
It's a stretch to call us friends, but a classmate. We were paired off in our senior seminar, our theses were the most similar so he was my partner. Just meant that every couple weeks we had to proof/give feedback for half an hour of class time.
Dude gave me the willies. Did the impossibly styled Rockabilly thing, was a walking Henry Winkler impression decades after the Fonze. Just odd. I was the type of 22 year old who looks 12. He'd do the intense eye contact, superficially sincere compliment thing to me. Stuff like "you've got the most innocent face. Really, I mean that" in a creepy ass, way too seriously hushed voice. His written notes on my thesis tended toward "we should talk about this after class." Yeah, no.
A couple years later Dateline came to town and curiosity got the better of me. I remember them teasing with a Rockabilly biker type in the preview and it hit me. Found my old notes during the commercial break. Names matched. Can't remember much of what happened on the show: he tried to compensate the humiliation with cockiness; talked about having a girlfriend; tried downing chips and drinks with Chris Hansen like it was no big deal. That's all I remember about that. I was shocked. Not that he'd get caught on Dateline, but more about seeing someone I knew on television. Also felt really, really, really bad for him. Worse than secondhand embarrassment, this was just plain old mortification. Let me stress: I did not like the guy, but in no way did I want to see his life ruined for entertainment. Never watched it since.
Dude gave me the willies. Did the impossibly styled Rockabilly thing, was a walking Henry Winkler impression decades after the Fonze. Just odd. I was the type of 22 year old who looks 12. He'd do the intense eye contact, superficially sincere compliment thing to me. Stuff like "you've got the most innocent face. Really, I mean that" in a creepy ass, way too seriously hushed voice. His written notes on my thesis tended toward "we should talk about this after class." Yeah, no.
A couple years later Dateline came to town and curiosity got the better of me. I remember them teasing with a Rockabilly biker type in the preview and it hit me. Found my old notes during the commercial break. Names matched. Can't remember much of what happened on the show: he tried to compensate the humiliation with cockiness; talked about having a girlfriend; tried downing chips and drinks with Chris Hansen like it was no big deal. That's all I remember about that. I was shocked. Not that he'd get caught on Dateline, but more about seeing someone I knew on television. Also felt really, really, really bad for him. Worse than secondhand embarrassment, this was just plain old mortification. Let me stress: I did not like the guy, but in no way did I want to see his life ruined for entertainment. Never watched it since.