Hated for Loving 
By: December

Chapter Two: Most Sun Deities are Male

	If friendships between women are simple in their complexity, 
friendships among men are complex in their simplicity.  Although 
guys will probably swear to the contrary, there aren’t rules about 
with who a guy can or cannot be friends.  This is probably for two 
reasons.  First, many guys have a bravado, a belief that even if
his friends are hotter, smarter, stronger, and richer than he is, 
he can still get the girl.  Second, the search for Ms. Right for 
men is not nearly as important or time consuming as the search for 
Mr. Right is for women.  If guys are searching for anything, it 
would be their posse, not their ‘other half’, if for no other 
reason than they don’t want to grow up as quickly as finding 
another ‘half’ would necessitate.


	So it would be very common to see guys together in 
configurations that would never happen with women.  The only 
constant may be that men have been known to use friendships 
as a status gaining avenue as well.  So, when a guy was popular, 
he was rarely alone.


	Andrew was one of those popular guys.  And if you asked 
his friends for why that was, assuming they didn’t stare at you 
for asking that question, they would all say different things.  
Alex would point to his intelligence and wit; Andrew was the guy
who could make Calculus understandable while not making someone
feel stupid for being confused in the first place.  Jason would 
point to Andrew’s sportsmanship.  Captain of the club water polo 
team, Andrew was a good leader and in great shape.  When he wasn’t 
playing water polo or swimming, he was lifting weights and doing 
resistance training.  Mik would say that it was Andrew’s personality. 
The guy was the life of the party, and he could do this while 
sober!  In one package you had a great partier and a designated 
driver.  Sam would point to his video game skills.  James would 
mention Andrew’s willingness to take risks.  Carl would say it 
was Andrew’s knowledge of football.  And on, and on.


	Andrew’s older sister Bree would say it was because her 
little brother was hot.


	Andrew had inherited all of the ‘good genes from the 
family,’ according to his sister.  The wavy dirty blond hair, 
the sky blue eyes, the height of 6’1”, the straight teeth, all 
of it went to Andrew.  Bree’s friends had compared her brother 
with Prince William, Jude Law, a young Tom Cruise, and Hugh 
Jackman; they all insisted that her brother was hotter.  What 
made Andrew even more attractive was, for some odd reason, 
he was not aware of how good looking he was.  Bree claimed 
it was because he spent too much time in pools.  All of that 
chlorine had damaged his eyes or something, she posited.


	Regardless of his awareness of it or not, Andrew was 
what some women would call the total package.  Of course he 
had faults, all men do, but no one was talking about what they 
were.  


	So, like every other Tuesday afternoon, Andrew was on 
his way to class.  He had already been to the gym once that 
day; he’d wanted to get in a few laps before the water polo 
game that evening.   So preoccupied in his thoughts his former 
roommate had to call Andrew twice before Andrew heard, slowed 
to a stop, and looked over his shoulder.  “Tyler, what’s up?”


	“Are you headed to History of Jazz now?’ the young 
man asked as he ran up to Andrew, pushing his glasses up 
on his nose as he ran.  “Can I walk with you?”   As he waited 
for Tyler pause to catch up with him, Andrew reflected on the 
walking contradiction that was his friend.


       Tyler was more than a study in contradictions, he was 
a dissertation.  An African-American male, he dressed as if 
he belonged to the Young Republicans but he had the political 
ideology more in keeping with the Black Panther Party.  About 
four inches shorter than Andrew, Tyler was also a good basketball 
player and an amazing chess strategist.  He was just as likely to 
say “Yo” or “ain’t” as he was to say “Dude” or to correct 
someone’s grammar.  His versatility was one of the reasons 
he was selected to become an resident assistant, a role Tyler 
reveled in.  When Andrew once asked Tyler how he had come to 
embrace the various parts of himself, Tyler shrugged. “I’m a 
product of my socialization.  My mother is a sociologist and 
my father is a conspiracy theorist.  Excuse me, I mean political 
scientist.  I think I was some sort of experiment,” he added 
as an afterthought.


       “So, did you hear?” Tyler began as he and Andrew 
continued to walk to their shared class.  “Crushingham 
has chosen the female half of his great experiment.  
He’ll be looking for the male half next.”


       Andrew shook his head.  “How do you know these 
things?  And why are we talking about this, anyway?”    
It never ceased to amaze Andrew the amount of gossip 
that Tyler kept up with.


       Tyler snorted.  “I found out the same way the 
rest of the student body found out.  I looked at the 
student newspaper,” the young man said as he reached 
into his bag to pull out something.  “It made the 
front page.  And they have a picture of the female 
selected.”


       Andrew grabbed the newspaper from his friend as 
they crossed the street.  “Let me see that.”  His 
eyes went right to the headline, “Female half of 
Crush study selected”.  The article itself was short 
and trite, so Andrew only skimmed it.  What arrested 
his attention was the picture next to the text.  “So, 
that’s the girl?”


       Tyler looked over his friend’s shoulder and then 
nodded.  “Yes.  That’s Miranda Inamorata.  She’s a 
freshman, I understand.  She’s actually one of ‘Zette’s 
girls,” Tyler continued, referring another RA, Suzette 
Wilson, that Andrew had had the pleasure of meeting 
through Tyler.  “Come to think of it, I think Zette’s a 
friend of hers.”


       Andrew just nodded, still slightly distracted by 
the picture.  “She’s actually pretty hot.”


       Tyler shrugged.  “I guess so.  Seems a little too 
deep for me.  But I never did like mysteries so much.  I 
like being able to figure out was is going on.”


       “Which is why you will never get involved with a 
woman,” Andrew laughed.


       “I don’t know.  Some black women are pretty blunt.  
I may be alright,” Tyler said.


       As the two sophomores neared the building where their 
300 level class was being held, Andrew turned to his friend 
and said, “So what about the male half of this couple?  It 
says something about discussing it with a potential candidate 
after his classes? But that doesn’t make sense.”


       “From what I hear,” Tyler stage whispered, “they’ve 
already picked out the perfect guy.  Then, they found out his 
class schedule and his extra curricular schedule and plan to 
ask him about joining the job…but only after they ran the 
picture of the female half.”


       “What?!” Andrew asked as they entered the building and 
began to climb the steps to the third floor.  Jostled by students 
on their way to class, Andrew raised his voice to be heard by 
his friend.  “Isn’t that a little creepy?  It sounds a like 
‘Big Brother’ like to me.”


       Tyler shrugged as he pushed open the door to the third 
floor.  “How else would he expect to get the guy’s attention?  
I mean, Crushingham would have to put on a big show to get the 
guy interested, right?”


       “Why?” Andrew asked, confused.  


       Tyler snorted as he slowed to a stop in the middle of 
the hallway.  “Because we guys are notoriously dense!  We need 
an incentive to show interest.  I mean, if Crushingham posted 
a flyer asking for volunteers, what guy would do it?  Would 
you do it?”


       “Yeah, sure.  What the heck?”  Andrew asserted without 
really thinking about it.  Anything had to be better than being 
selected because someone was stalking you in Andrew’s head.  “I 
mean, it is a new experience and it might actually be interesting,” 
Andrew added quietly as he looked down at the picture of Ms. 
Inamorata again.


       “I’m glad to hear you say that,” a voice said from somewhere
in front of them.


       Andrew’s head quickly shot up to see an older gentleman 
standing in their path.  Confused, Andrew decided to wait for the 
stranger to fill in the blanks.  He didn’t have to wait long.  
“Andrew Champion, I take it?” the stranger said more than asked.


       “Yes?” Andrew confirmed cautiously.


       “I’m Dr. Crushingham, and, based on your last statement, 
I think you’ll agree to my request of your help in my little project.”


       Andrew stared at the professor.  After a few seconds, 
Andrew slowly nodded his head, still clearly confused.  “Okay, 
I’ll help.  But how did you-“


       Andrew never got to answer his question because his friend 
Tyler suddenly interrupted him.  Addressing the professor, the 
young man asked, “So, does this mean I get my extra credit for 
Psych 221?”


       “Absolutely, Mr. Washington.  Thank you for all of your 
help in setting this up,” the professor said as he shook Tyler’s hand.


       “No problem,” Tyler replied.


       “Wait a second,” Andrew said as he turned to his friend 
in shock.  “You set me up?!”


       “Hey, Zette told me that she wanted a good guy for Miranda.  
She practically ordered me to do something!  And, when Dr. 
Crushingham asked for suggestions in class…” Tyler defended 
himself from his clearly annoyed friend.  With his hands in the 
air, Tyler continued to plead his case.  “Besides, do you know 
how hard Psych 221 is?!  I mean, Dr. Crushingham was offering extra 
credit!  I needed it, Dude.  It would be stupid to turn it down.  
And I ain’t stupid.”


       Andrew looked back and forth between his friend and 
the professor.  “What in the world have I gotten myself into?”


       Later, after Dr. Crushingham had gotten the final agreement, 
he allowed himself a smile.  His female graduate students had 
objected to the manner in which he made selections, insisting 
that male students were not shallow enough to have their 
involvement determined by the looks of the female candidate. 
"They may have an idea of how the world should work, but I’m 
the one who has an insight into the male mind.  And I was 
right,” the professor thought to himself.  Everyone else 
gathered in the hall may not have noticed, but Andrew Champion 
never did let go of the school newspaper that held Miranda 
Inamorata’s picture…and the young man couldn’t seem to keep 
himself from looking at it often, either.  The professor 
smiled.  Let the games begin.
       

To be continued