The Art of Standing Out

He kept his head bowed, sunglasses on, earbuds in, music loud and staring into the pages of his course text book - he certainly wasn’t reading anything on the pages of random maths equations, he was just simply staring. All of this gave him an air of unapproachability, made it look like he didn’t want to be noticed or disturbed – which he didn’t. 

Why would he want to interact with anyone face to face when he’d rather be at home in front of his trusty computer and chat with his online friends from all over the world? He was safe there, he could be who he wanted, but here he was forced to fit into a fixed stereotype of university student. 

This place was all hustle and bustle, too many people that posed a potential threat to him comfortable bubble of protection. These anonymous strangers were lacking in everything he’d want to be interested in – if he ever would be. Someone nearby was smoking and he coughed slightly each time the wind blew the horrid cloud his way, some were listening to music aloud with speakers as if others liked their taste in music. And if he was being honest the worst of it all was the fashion sense. It was as if everyone around him was trying to impress some invisible fashion designer who favoured ridiculous designs. Did they honestly think that what they were wearing would be getting them favourable attention? They were dreaming, absolutely delusional. They were simply being judged. 

Sitting there, he waited for his class to get close to starting. He lived a rather far close distance from the university campus so he had walked. Leaving early to make sure he’d make it on time he’d made it over the railway line and onto campus when the shuttle bus had arrived. He took it without a thought and now he was half an hour early. One thing he hated more than being late was being excessively early. A minute or two was one thing, but any time over that was pushing it. It meant that he had to sit there and look pathetic with all the other morons and wait for the lecture room to even open. 

Checking the time again, he sighed and stood as he shouldered his backpack, holding his textbook at his side, stepping towards the entrance of the building. There was ten minutes before class so he figured that the room would be open by then. After checking that it was the right room a few times, he tested the door handle and found that it gave way for him and swung open. Walking into the empty lecture theatre – folders and books on the teacher’s desk indicating that they were coming back – he chose a seat right up the back where he could sit with his phone for the next two hours. It would all be introductions and walking through a course outline anyways and he already know all of that crap.

The reception at the university was the worst he’d seen, struggling to get onto his social network of choice to see if anyone had messaged him. With no luck he put his phone down and turned up the music he was playing, closing his eyes behind the dark tint of his sunglasses and staring absently at the front cover of the text he’d placed on the small desk he’d had to swing up to sit down and was now trapped by.

Despite his music he heard the obnoxious creak of the door as it opened and turned his head, preparing to see the same lecturer he’d seen at his orientation, but instead saw that it was another student. He scrunched his nose a little seeing that it was another one of those students. He had his hair dyed a light blonde with eyebrows also coloured to match. His clothing wasn’t much better; on his head he wore a black beanie with a button spelling out a phrase in English, he wore a white shirt with a graphic of some kind but was mostly covered with a denim jacket that had tears here and there, upon his legs was a pair of black skinny jeans, hugging his legs all the way down to hot pink hightops.

Pink? What kind of guy wore pink like that?

He turned back to staring at his text book, deciding that it was a better option than the horrible excuse for fashion he was forced to spend the class with. Hopefully he wouldn’t sit within his eye of sight then he wouldn’t have to look at him.