Campus Perves

We all had them. Mine never really conformed to a type, unless ‘winsome’ is a category.

 

My physical reaction to their proximity was real as an asthma attack. Perve du jour would walk into a room, my heart would leap into my throat, beating loud as a drum in a biscuit tin, and previously coherent sentences would congeal in my mouth like lumpy plasticine. Tearing my gaze away I’d quickly fumble back what I was doing: talking to my friends in Kaif; drinking a beer in The Union; or hamfistedly fielding a question from my English tutor- but all the time my whole body knew where they were, like an agitated Pointer dog. In severe cases I was simply overcome and would have to leave the room, party, or lecture hall. I’d sigh back against a wall, breathe deep and count to ten.

 

They brightened my days though. The radiance of a beautiful girl was something that lit up all us mortals as we orbited round them. Like the sun, you could never brazenly gawp at a campus perve too long, but you could bask in the warmth of their comeliness. The mere thought of one would have me bumbling off in a dumbly smiling dwaal, recording endless mix tapes to them in my head. 

In four years I ended up dating two campus perves. I felt like a lottery winner, and I distinctly remember thunderous applause from my friends that night I first kissed Nadja in the Vic. The relationships were giddy, flying close to the sun experiences that lasted all too short. I learned you had to punch your own weight class.

They live on in songs from those mental mix tapes. I wonder where they are now?