After being cooped up indoors for the seemingly endless winter, University of Massachusetts students appreciate warm air against their bare arms as they walk or bike to class. They eagerly – perhaps too eagerly – throw their wooly sweaters and corduroy pants up in the attic, or more likely, in the back of their dorm room closet, and replace them with brightly colored tank tops, shorts, dresses, and flip-flops. Spring teased us last weekend with gorgeous weather, but this past week we were all knocked back to reality as we donned scarves, winter jackets, and hats for our treks across campus.
What makes spring at UMass so amusing is not just seeing girls and guys sunning themselves on the Southwest basketball courts or on the more serene Central lawns, but seeing all of our college age hormones come alive as soon as bare skin starts to show. You all know what I’m talking about. It’s as if once the snow melts the convertible tops come down and we all become dogs in heat. Literally.
Guys and girls are on the prowl, hoping to end their almost semester-long hibernation. Guys look at girls in their short jean skirts, while girls check out the few decent looking men at this school (just kidding guys) wearing baggy khaki shorts, flip flops, and a white t-shirt (my favorite combination.) Guys driving Jeeps turn most girls’ heads, but guys, just because you drive a Jeep doesn’t mean you’re attractive or fun or interesting. It just means you might know how to spell Wrangler.
Last weekend, a friend of mine took an innocent stroll around Amherst center. Being an athletic, attractive blonde, she usually attracts male attention. However, she told me that she had an abnormal amount of men staring at her, practically licking their lips, making her feel like a “hunk of man meat,” as she called it. Did her white tank top make the difference? Or was it her bare legs, well defined from running miles a day? Dr. Katy thinks it may be due to the heat and everyone’s sexual frustration being let out into the fresh, warm air.
The winter seems to be a dead time for relationships, dating, and just plain old flirting and checking people out. I always seem to meet more guys in the summer, as I’m sure most of you reading this do. Sunshine and daylight until 9 p.m. makes people happier and able to go out and have a good time without having to worry about snowstorms and bundling up in winter gear. There is a sense of freedom, of throwing self-consciousness and inhibitions to the wind, of letting negative feelings about love and relationships melt with the snow.
Just walking down the street in town or on campus, I see many more members of the opposite sex saying hello to each other and exchanging pleased glances and smiles. After all, what better way to make yourself go to class than to know you may get to not only see your crush, but maybe see them with less clothing on. This does not mean, of course, that we should hurry spring. Leave your sandals and halter tops at home girls until it’s warm enough to wear them! Boys, what is the point of wearing a t-shirt with a winter hat? Where’s your coat?
All of my friends notice a significant difference in the behavior and attitude of guys and girls on the UMass campus at this time of the year. Two of my friends have been asked out numerous times in the past couple of weeks, when all winter they felt invisible. It is a time of limbo – midterms are over, finals haven’t started, it’s almost time to start working again, but not quite. So many of us are left with one thing on our minds.
The spring is a time for all of us to realize how happy we can be, how great it feels to enjoy the outdoors, and how we probably should have the same attitude all year round. Sometimes UMass seems like a lonely campus, most of us walking around with wind-chapped faces from the damn library wind tunnel, in our own little worlds, avoiding eye contact with anyone else. We owe it to tube tops, sandals, shorts, and sunglasses for giving all of us an excuse to be outgoing, friendly, and in love: with the weather, with our good friends, a great class or two, and maybe another spring-hearted soul who we’ll find as soon as we look up from the snow covered ground.
