It’s true that once I got a little age on me, that I was a
lot better with the women. But all through junior high, high school and even
part of college – I was anything but a ladies’ man. Like many young men, I was
a little shy, a little awkward, around the pretty girls.
Eventually I grew up and became comfortable in my own skin,
my own self and enjoyed a somewhat active dating life. A few years into it, I
met the love of my life – and married her.
But before that, I was always painfully bashful and didn’t
know what to say or how to act when life presented me with an attractive member
of the opposite sex in a social situation.
Which means that I didn’t exactly know how to react last
night when an array of cute college girls shamelessly flirted with my son. For
those that don’t know, I teach in the Department of Communication at a small,
liberal arts university in southern California. I have many wonderful students
that inevitably always includes a contingent of gorgeous co-eds. I often laugh
that some of these young ladies are actually nice to me, no doubt because I am
their professor. But if I was 20-year-old-me sitting in class next to them,
they wouldn’t pay me any attention.
But last night I took my wife and son to watch the women’s
basketball team play. We sat at the end of the gymnasium, very near the end of
the bench. And during the second half, several of the young ladies on the
basketball team - at the end of the bench - began smiling and making eyes at my son. A couple of them
called him by his name, Jackson.
He made all matter of eyes back at them and gave them that wide-open,
toothy grin. And those eyes were just sparkling. I’m not sure who loved each
other more, him or them.
Jackson is a one-year-old.
And then it hit me. What if he somehow bypasses that ugly,
gangly stage that his father went through and is, sort of, still in – and stays
beautiful and handsome, as he is now?
Let me back up for a moment.
With as little bias and partiality as I can muster, let me
just state that my son is an extremely attractive little boy. He’s off the
charts. And it’s not just me saying that. I promise! Others say it, too. The
registrar at my school told me in an e-mail that “You know how you are supposed
to say a baby’s cute when you first meet it – whether the baby is cute or not?
Well, Jackson really IS that cute.”
So there you have it. And who has ever contested the
accuracy of an actual registrar at a university? They are paid to be precise –
and honest.
What will I do when little girls come calling? Or texting?
Or to the front door? I’m not sure. I have no experience in being a player at
such a young age. I didn’t do THAT until I was in my 30s. By then I had some
common sense.
But Jackson could very well be what I never was: a ladies’ man.
When in doubt, I plan to give him the only – and best –
advice I know:
Go ask your mother.
