Ryan: Admit it. Two weeks of classes have gone by, and the only thing you remember is that the hot brunette in your history class sits three rows back, two seats to the left. You’re not really sure if you’re even enrolled in a history class.

Pope: Unfortunately, you can’t turn and stare at her for the whole 50 minutes. Apparently that’s considered “creepy.” Besides, you’re in class with that studmuffin Matt Kleinmann, whose mere presence extends a visual tractor beam two to three miles in every direction, demanding your constant attention. It’s time to improvise.

Ryan: We all have our own methods for checking out the opposite sex. Most people use the fake back stretch, which allows for greater range of movement and enables you to contort yourself like you’re in Cirque du Soleil to get that perfect view. The orthopedic back brace in 20 years will be a small price to pay.

Pope: Of course, this feeble attempt at peeking doesn’t fool you, ladies. You do it too, though your subtlety really isn’t necessary. You could look at us all day long and we wouldn’t care. We may even be looking back, just not at your face.

Ryan: But why do we all feel the need to take that third bathroom break mid-lecture just to get another eyeful? You don’t have to pee, and everyone knew that the second time around. The answer to this long-debated question is not as simple as you may think, requiring formulaic fortitude and stupendously scientific sciences. You don’t even want to know how many homeless people we had to dissect to get our information. It would be impossible to fit it all in this space.

Pope: That’s what she said.

Ryan: Indeed. However, it is our journalistic duty to inform the public as best we can. In youth, our knowledge regarding females was primitive, consisting entirely of an upside-down calculator and the number 5318008. As we advanced in our learning, so did the algorithms. We were taught to use this standard equation to solve the mysteries of the female anatomy:

(milk2 + lemonade)/
√fudge

Pope: The more we learned, our bodies as well as our minds started to grow at an exponential rate greater than or equal to the gross national product of the cosine tangent. We began to devote all our time to studying a woman’s slope-intercept form, eventually becoming obsessed with trying to get a piece of that warm apple π. The focus then shifted to applying our theorems to reality, such as finding the largest circumference possible of two circles resting on the same plane, as well as other equally important curves.

Ryan: After these long years of rigorous study, we have now solved the enigma of human attraction. This scientific breakthrough of ours outshines all others, including the time we cured cancer – twice. Previous theories involving “feelings,” “love” and “lots of money” have been proven irrelevant. We are excited to be able to reveal our discovery here and put an end to all speculation.

Pope: I just hope our column isn’t too long and we run out of spa­

Michael Pope is a Kansas City senior in English. Ryan Snyder is a Leawood senior in English.