As the first snowflakes descend on campus, one thing is abundantly clear: the good looking people of UW-Madison are gone, buried under countless layers of winter clothing.
Gone are the sorority girls in their revealing tops. Gone are the studs running up and down State Street in shorts and no shirts. And gone with their wondrous wears, or lack thereof, are the hopes and dreams of thousands of students.
'This is an extremely troubling time for college students, especially the underclassmen,' University Health Services psychologist Dom Perion said. 'The days are shorter, finals are coming and it gets so cool so fast, all of a sudden the so-called hotties just disappear. Like they never existed. It's very traumatic.'
'Walking to class is so depressing now,' said sophomore Brian Jensen. 'I have to say that blue jean pants do not compare to blue jean mini-skirts.'
Jensen is merely echoing the sentiments of the campus population who have come to realize that winter means hottie hibernation. It is a serious phenomenon that strikes at the heart of college campuses located in cold weather states. One day your average on-looker experiences sensory overload as numerous gorgeous people surround them and the next day one begs to catch just a glimpse of skin on a passerby.
'I used to get lost for hours looking out my window at all the cute guys going in and out of the SERF,' said Judi Kenner, a freshman whose Ogg Hall dorm room is right across the street from the SERF. 'Now they're buried underneath those sweatpants and winter coats. They only way I can see them now are if I actually worked out. Fat chance of that.'
Across UW-Madison the scintillating curves of the females are smothered by bulky sweaters and the chiseled bods of the males are muzzled by North Face winter jackets. With no relief in sight, students are getting their fill wherever they can.
'I've taken to enjoying that few seconds right between the moment a girl takes off her jacket in lecture and the moment she sits down,' UW-Madison junior Thomas Crammer said. 'It sounds so pathetic, but it's all I've got to keep me going sometimes.'
Coping mechanisms for such difficult times is typical, Perion said.
'What you have is students looking to handle this very hard situation in anyway they can,' he said. 'Some people may try to schedule only females for appointments in the hopes some lookers come in ... I mean, students might do that.'
As the brutality of winter marches on, this already desperate situation will only get worse. The layers will pile on as any semblance of shape is lost amongst the sea of amorphous blobs wading from class to class. Thought you saw a shapely breast? Most likely it was just bunched up coat fabric. Thought you saw some rock hard man-buns? Probably a mirage created by several pairs of shorts beneath his pants.
'The only thing one can do is try to wait winter out,' said Perion. 'Try to stay in a routine and spring will eventually come. Oh ... and pornography helps.'
