By Loren Sanders
As bowl season has come to a close, it brings about a few sad realizations…
First, there have been a lot of meaningless football games played as the memories of competitive games gone by linger on in the hearts of those who care.
Second, Notre Dame... well... Nevermind.
Non sequitur: I am a male. I have a female name. Believe it or not, I am actually thankful to my parents for it – it’s responsible for at least part of who I am, and it’s given me plenty of experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise had... There was the time I got carded in the self-scan checkout at Kroger – not for buying alcohol, mind you. No, I was stopped buying bread and cheese under the suspicion of credit card theft. Or the delightful tow truck driver asked me for my insurance card. Upon review, he asked if it was my wife’s insurance card. “No, that’s me.” Without skipping a beat he replied, “You a Johnny Cash Fan?”
For all the life experiences and all the people who follow an introduction with “I knew another guy named Loren,” one thing the name hasn’t given me is any additional understanding of what a woman is thinking.
That said, as far as I can figure, women seem to enjoy their time on the jumbotron infinitely more than any sober male over the age of nine. Generally speaking, they smile, wave, and impatiently wait for their boyfriend or husband to kiss them in front of thousands of strangers.
But, for a guy, what good comes out of an appearance on the kiss cam? Best case scenario, you’re 85 years old, you appear on the jumbotron, three seconds later you figure out which focal you need to verify it’s you and your wife up there, you awkwardly bump dentures, the crowd goes “aww,” and, three minutes later, you and your wife both forget what happened.
If you have Alzheimer’s, read the last paragraph again. You’ll love it. Assuming you don’t, how do you win here?
Scenario 1 – the guy behind you punches you in the back to let you know that you and your sister are on the kiss cam. Well, assuming you’re not from [fill in your rival school name here and laugh heartily], you’re not going to kiss your sister. No one else in the crowd knows she’s your sister. You get booed.
Scenario 2 – during pregame, an attractive woman sits in the seat next to you. You spend the next six media timeouts waiting for the kiss cam. When it finally arrives, she can’t take her eyes off the screen, ooh-ing and aww-ing at each couple. Kicking all probability in the marbles, you actually appear on the kiss cam. Not only does she not make eye contact, she immediately covers her face and dives into her friend’s lap. You get mocked.
Scenario 3 – your significant other asks you two times per game “are you going to kiss me if we get on the kiss cam?” You get on the kiss cam. You kiss her. No one cares but her. You get nothing.
The chances that you get excited when the kiss cam music plays in the arena are about the same as a Chick-Fil-A employee saying “you’re welcome.”
We’ll wrap this thing up with a few strategies for avoidance… You could go with the aforementioned pretending to text. You could make a run for the bathroom when the music cranks up. You could get into a very in-depth conversation with a male sitting nearby, ensuring uncomfortable eye contact. You could go the film prisoner route and hide a blade between your cheek and your gum, slitting your lip immediately upon appearing on the camera. Okay, please don’t do the last one. It’s probably not even legal.
Or, if she’s with you, you can just kiss her. If you’re dating and you make it past the cheek and to the lips, you can look at that as a win – even if it’s manufactured, that win is better than anything you’ll experience on a kiss cam prior to Medicare eligibility... Unless, of course, scenario 2 girl is drunk.
