A woman approaching a man to express her interest in him, is like a gazelle approaching a lion to compliment the lion’s teeth.
“Damn, you got some sexy teeth,” says the gazelle.
“Thanks,” says the lion. “When was the last time someone tried to eat you?”
“Oh, no one has tried to eat me in months,” says the gazelle.
“I’ll eat you,” says the lion. And, the lion eats the gazelle.
I’m sure some gazelles would shout, “Ooh, eat me! Eat me! Eat me!”–but a gazelle has to hope that the lion is one of the “good” lions that won’t take advantage of her interest in him, and that he won’t entertain himself with a few bites from her hind quarters and leave the rest for the birds.
A couple of college friends and I had a term for when a woman approaches a man first: We called it “Panties on the Table.”
We meant Panties on the Table, as in, “Son, she put the panties on the table … go get’em!” which interpreted a woman’s eagerness to initiate an exchange with a man as a direct route to her panties that shouldn’t be botched by the man “over thinking,” saying or doing something stupid, or having a pesky conscious.
I remember the first time someone in college put her panties on the table for me. She didn’t just put them on the table, she slammed them like, “Dominos, fool!” and the panties bounced off the table and hit my face.
It was my sophomore year, and the young lady and I shared a public speaking class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She was attractive, with flawless skin, almond-shaped eyes, and her lip gloss had a “pop” that looked like it was wet to the touch.
She was a “thick” girl and “healthy” in all the right places, so she had some big panties. A particular pair was a pink, lace thong that she made sure I saw in class one day while she adjusted her jeans near her desk.
Besides her obvious flirtations, I would catch her staring at me while I took notes from the teacher’s lectures. Her gaze wasn’t seductive or lustful; it was curious, like a small child watching a clown twist a balloon animal. She was deliberate, and would turn away just slowly enough for me to realize that she had been staring.
One day, the teacher gave our class a timing exercise intended to demonstrate how long a minute seemed when having to give an off-the-cuff speech. She wrote words onto small index cards, placed them in a paper bag, and walked throughout the room for each student to reach into the bag and selected a card.
I selected a card that read “Sex,” which was ironic since I had contemplated a theory about sex in recent days. The remaining students selected their cards and the room buzzed with anticipation.
The teacher instructed everyone to go to the front of the classroom by seating order, to give a one-minute presentation on their selected topic. The class sat through nervous introductions, rushed details, and blank stares as students felt the pressure of having to fill the 60 seconds with meaningful content.
One guy from New Jersey had the word “Censorship.” He stood up front with one hand in his pocket, stared at his card in silence, and then said, “I don’t even know what that is.”
The teacher told him to have a seat and to see her after class.
My turn arrived after less than half the class had given their presentations. I walk to the front of the room, stood behind the podium, and avoided leaning or slouching as our teacher instructed. I began:
Sex is one of the three involuntary drives of human nature—along with sleep and hunger. Each drive can be countered or offset by the implementation of one of the others. If you become hungry, you can go to sleep to dissipate your hunger; if you become sleepy, sexual arousal will wake you up; if you become sexually aroused, eating food will satiate your craving. The sex drive is stimulated in more ways than the other drives, and therefore can be artificially induced more easily. Thoughts, physical stimuli, and cyclical patterns of the endocrine system can stimulate the sex drive.
That was the gist of the speech and I’ve refined my perspective on the topic since then, but my explanation lasted for the required 60 seconds. I stepped away from the podium and returned to my seat to mild applause and an approving nod from my teacher.
My admirer followed me down the aisle with her eyes until I sat down. Two or three more students gave their presentations, and then the teacher informed the class that the session had expired and the students who hadn’t given their presentations would give them Thursday.
I threw my backpack over my shoulders and funneled out of the classroom with the other students. I walked down the hall and through the exit door, and heard, “Hey Dante, wait up.”
I looked back and my admirer was approaching from the exit. She had never acknowledged me by name. I slowed down enough for her to catch up and keep pace with my stride just beyond the lecture hall. “You did a good job on your speech,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I would have been so embarrassed if I had gotten your topic. You weren’t embarrassed?”
“Nah, the speech was only a minute.”
“Yeah, but to talk about sex in front of everyone like that … I would have been embarrassed.” We walked past the library, toward the Cultural Center where my next class was held. I don’t know if her next class was in the same direction, but she followed me across the campus. “You know a lot about sex, huh?”
“No, not really,” I said.
“I couldn’t tell. You were talking about how eating turns you on.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, eating chocolate turns me on.”
“Oh, word?”
“Uhn huh,” she said, with a smirk. “Hey, do you want to study together sometimes?”
And there it was—the ol’ “study together” routine.
Students have been using that ploy to get “alone time” with other students since schoolhouses had one room and dirt floors.
She might as well have invited me to play a game of “Hide & Seek,” or “House,” or “Doctor,” or by today’s standards, invited me over to watch “Netflix”–they all mean the same thing.
“Sure, we can meet in the library one day after classes,” I said.
“Well, my cousin has an apartment off campus … I was thinking we could study there.”
“I don’t know where your cousin lives.”
“I’ll give you the address; it’s not far,” she said. “Or, I can drive us there.”
And, Dominos! The panties were officially on the table. I had to decide if I would snatch them up and stuff them into my pocket, or leave them on the table to “dry” out and wither away. The gazelle had climbed into my mouth to examine my molars, and I only had to take a bite and enjoy the meal.
“The library would probably be better,” I said. “I’m pretty busy after class.”
“Okay, let me know if you change your mind.” She veered in the opposite direction as we approached the Cultural Center, and I had essentially left the panties on the table.
I was dating someone off campus at the time, anyway, but I appreciated the appreciation.
I later told my friend (and co-creator of “panties on the table”) about the encounter, and after his attempt to ridicule me for leaving the panties on the table, he informed me that my admirer was quite the “talent.”
He said she was renowned for her “exceptional skills,” and she had a nickname to match.
I won’t mention the nickname here since this a PG-13 blog, but let’s just say that it rhymes with “Sheep Coat.”
Lesson learned: A gazelle that can “sheep coat” is a heck of a meal.
