My new girlfriend
Without fail, every one of my students asks me if I have a girlfriend, every time they see me. It doesn't matter that yesterday, the last time they asked, I didn't have a girlfriend. It doesn't matter that, when their friend asked 20 minutes ago, and they were sitting there listening to me, and I haven't moved since, I said I don't have a girlfriend. There seems to be in them an expectation that I have a clone, out trolling for new girlfriends even as the other me, Mister Daniel, sits and eats rice with his students.
I had lunch yesterday with one of my classes, all girls. Inevitably, each one asks a few soft questions about if I can use chopsticks and if I think this food is delicious and if I want to visit their hometown. Yes, yes, yes.
Then, the girl blushes, starts to speak but gets discombobulated and retreats, giggling. After composure is gathered, she makes another try. Sometimes, on the second run through, the girl can get out, "Mister Simmons, is it okay if I ask you a private question?" These words, spoken in a near-whisper and through a blushed face, are adorable.
And I tell them about the St. John's cross-country team's rules of interviews: I am free not to answer any question, and I am free to turn the question around and ask them.
And then, finally, "Mr. Simmons, can you tell me, do you have a girlfriend?"
Well, yesterday, upon the first time the question was posed, I answered, "why yes I do." I was smiling widely, as I saw the girl right there in the dining room with us. The table of girls went bananas. "In fact, I can introduce her to you right now." And my students went even more bananas.
I went over to this little girl I always play basketball with, who always gets very excited when she sees me on campus and screams "Ni Hao!" Nearly every day, she comes up to me on the basketball court, bats the ball out of my hand and practices her underhand jumpshot from two feet out. Sometimes, I let her stand on my shoulders so she can dunk.
In the dining room, I asked her to hold my hand and accompany me over to the table full of my students, who were waiting anxiously, ready to scream. I appeared in front of them, holding hands with an eight-year-old, and said, "Isn't she lovely?" And they asked me where my girlfriend was, and I said they were looking at her, and I turned the question around and asked all of them about their boyfriends, per the rules of St. John's cross-country team.
