Rhodes student officially Most Awkward Male in SA

A Rhodes student has cause to celebrate this week after being officially awarded the title of Most Awkward University Male in South Africa, leaving bad-hug-givers and monosyllabic-answer contenders across the country in the dust.

According to the Institute for the Study of Human Behaviour, which oversaw the massive nationwide contest, 21-year-old BSc student Jake Henderson (also known by many as “That Guy”) has blown away the competition to earn first place by miles.

"Henderson first came to our attention early this year,” said head of the competition’s panel of judges Sue Seyetie. “We got reports that he would frequently walk down the street and then, suddenly realising that he was going in the wrong direction, check his mobile phone, frown at it, and then spin and walk the other way.”

Henderson’s efforts to cinch the coveted title were emboldened by many other key strategies that most other socially awkward guys didn’t do.

“His other feats include walking side-by-side down Prince Alfred street with his best friend and then accidentally holding hands after their arms collided during a sidestep around a puddle,” said Seyetie, “as well as accidentally liking that photo of a girl he knows in a bikini on Facebook from two years ago.”

However, at this stage of the game, there were still many contenders putting up a strong fight.

“It was a tough decision,” said co-panellist Oork Ward. “We had one guy at Wits who accidentally made the name of the girl he was trying to look up on Facebook as his status, and yet another guy at NMMU who would stand in the middle of a circle of friends, cutting one or two people out, and then always crack a topically relevant joke just as the subject changed. It was a close call for a while there.”

However, it was Henderson’s final acts that cemented his place on the podium.

“Jake was at a friend’s house for a party. Not only did he sit down at a table and accidentally footsie another dude opposite him while wearing leather sandals, he also later sat down too close to a guy he didn’t know on the couch by the TV, having their leg hair rub together. He then went on to dig for chips out of the bag on the aforementioned male’s lap,” said Ward. “However, the final nail in the competition’s coffin was with Jess, your friend from Durban.”

According to eyewitnesses at the party, Henderson reportedly tried to turn a handshake with her into a hug, ending up with the horrific combination of a body lean and a back pat that looked like two people trying to hug each other while not touching.

“I saw the whole thing,” said Megan Astley, a bystander who had to be treated for severe muscle damage after her cringe shut down her entire nervous system. “Right after that, he tried to pat her arm and ended up hitting her in the boob. I passed out just after that.”

Henderson is set to receive his trophy next weekend in Johannesburg at the National Awkward Symposium, where attendees will mingle sipping drinks and dancing badly while not talking to anyone.

“It is set to be a very special occasion,” said Ward, “although we’re thinking of changing the MC who gives out trophies. He’s a well-known rap DJ, you see, and we don’t want Jake going in for a fist-bump and then morphing it into a hip-hop cupped-handshake-slash-shoulder-slap thing at the last moment. That would just be too much.”