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.”
