Social Cues

I have another rant for you all to enjoy. This one stems from the sometimes weird students at BYU that crave conversation and friendship, completely ignoring social cues. 

The following is an example that happens to me almost daily and it drives me crazy:

I walk into my general education class, maybe its a humanities class or something similar. I have my headphones in and i choose a seat in the corner or on the edge of an isle so that only one person can sit next to me. I be sure to check that no one is in the seat next to the one that I'm eyeing. I find the seat, I sit down, put my backpack under my chair (I put NOTHING in the empty seat next to me) and pull out my phone and listen to my music while surfing Facebook until class begins. Here's where it goes wrong.

Some random person comes up to me and they stop next to my chair. I can see legs out of my peripherals from staring at my phone. I took over and I see lips moving, but I don't hear anything. I awkwardly take out an earbud and ask what they said, and the answer is always the same, "Are you saving that seat for anyone?"

Obviously this seat next to me is open. I am not saving it for anyone, that should be clear because there is no indication that it is taken or being saved. This bugs me a little more than it should, probably. But why can't people just see an open seat, and then go and sit in it if it's clearly available? Drives me nuts. Then, after the interaction and I let the intruder to my personal space sit next to me, I put my headphones back in and numbingly stare at my phone again.

Then the next part happens, they try to make small talk with me. I've already put my earbud back in so we have to go through the whole awkward part of pulling out my headphones again and ask what they say. Then the conversation is always the same: what's your name, where are you from, what's your major, etc. Isn't it clear that I don't want to talk to you? If having my headphones in and not engaging you in any way wasn't enough, then weren't my short answers to your questions enough? I hate when I have to go through that awkwardness. The worst is when people do that when you're walking between classes and then there's no escape because they will follow you until you either get to your destination or you die.

Maybe I'm just a cynical old man. But I have my friends, I am graduating in a couple months, I don't need to make more. I understand where people are coming from, they're just trying to be friendly, and that's okay. But please, look at the social cues. If I want to talk to you, I will be fully engaged. If I don't, I'm going to sit there with my headphones in and my eyes three inches from my phone. 

I'm a nice person I promise. 

BYU Football, We Need to Talk

So, last night BYU lost to number 14 Boise State.

If I told you that BYU had a +5 turnover margin and it didn't give up the ball once, you would probably immediately think that BYU won. But it didn't. The Cougars lost 27-28.

Now, I'm not unaccustomed to ugly BYU games, they seem to occur often. But this one was bad. Really bad. So I'm mostly going to just vent on this blog, so apologies in advance.

First things first, who coached this game? Was it an NCAA coach or some middle school kid that treated the game like it was Madden 17? Really though, I'm not sure because it was awful.

Example 1: a fake punt on 4th and 19 in BYU's own endzone. When I saw this play, my first thought was that it was a blown play and something went wrong and the punter had no choice. Unfortunately I was wrong. This was a PLANNED play call. Never, in my years of watching football, have I seen a call like this before. This will easily rank in the top three worst plays I have ever seen in my life. The most bizarre part? BSU turned over the ball before it could capitalize on BYU's horrendous play call.

Let's talk about the quarterback and the wide receivers for a minute now. Every one is coming down on Taysom Hill as a result of his poor passing and poor judgement. I can't say that I disagree with these people. Hill didn't even achieve a 50 percent completion against BSU. He averaged just over four yards per completion. These are numbers that you would expect from a middle school or even a high school team. All I have to say is Hill had his shot in the most important games of the season and he didn't shine. It's time to prepare for the next two years and put in Tanner Mangum.

Now on to the receivers. On the few occasions that Hill had a decent pass, more often than not, it seemed like the receivers would drop them. Nick Kurtz comes to mind as he had three or four drops if I recall, one of them would have been a touchdown. Several other receivers got hit in the hands and dropped the ball on crucial plays as well. Here's what I don't understand: these players get recruited to do one thing. They're given money for food, for housing and to attend a nationally renown college and yet, they can't do the one thing that they're given all this to do.

If you didn't watch the game, you might be thinking "oh, but BYU scored 27 points!" Well, somehow, despite how awful the defense was, it managed to score two touchdowns on interceptions. Now, I can't blame our cornerbacks for getting burned on deep routes for most of the night because they're true freshmen. But still, our defense just couldn't hang.

BYU is painful to watch. The Cougar fan base lives off of hope for a good season. But rarely do the Cougars pull through. I guess that's why fans rushed the field when BYU defeated Mississippi State, a team that was 2-3 coming into Provo last week. Anyway, here's to hoping that BYU can win the rest of its games this season, teams that aren't ranked and aren't really relevant so my expectations are high. Don't let me down, BYU.