College Networking- The Scumfuck Method

Once upon a time, there was a very geeky hombre from the far north.

He had, through various ways and means, ended up attending school in Indiana, and, aside from the fact that the place was flat and full of people he didn't like, was making a go at getting his worthless degree.

The first two years passed uneventfully, as he drifted through school, making almost no impression beyond a few strong attachments, mostly to women he found attractive and unattainable. And then there was the Scumfuck.

Our hero and two of the women he was surrounded with ended up in a course on stickfighting. One of them found the instructor attractive, and had followed him into the course from his Hapkido. Our hero followed them because A- Why not? and B- Bashing people with sticks had a certain ring to it.

It was in this class that he would encounter his single best friend from his college years, a large fellow who often wore a shirt bearing the legend "BDSM Instructor."

As neither one of them had a sparring partner (because both of them apparently intimidated the morons in the class), they ended up as partners. They were lazy.... incredibly so. So lazy, that neither one bothered to get the other's contact information so they could actually practice. Their meetings outside of class that semester could be counted on two fingers. They did not bond over their sloth, either, but simply jumped through the hoops and came out of the class with a basically positive view of one another and little else. Our hero also got to show off his insanely poor social radar in his new friends' presence at a Halloween party, although, really, in hindsight, the actual outcome of the evening was better, because it further cemented an important bond. The next semester, our hero took up his new comrade's recommendation to enroll in Modern Arnis.

Here was stickfighting. Here was also a class where the two of them gave a shit- and, having had prior acquaintence, actually started hanging out. They shared several important traits- A nerdish love of roleplaying games, a love of good food, and an indifference to their peers that amounted to mania.

They also got along because neither one much cared what the other did. Our hero would routinely ignore the depraved sexual acts of the Scumfuck and his then-girlfriend in the name of Warcraft III on the Scumfuck's computer.

On such foundations are lasting friendships forged.
Things got even better the next year, because the two ended up rooming on the same floor of the same dorm. That would be the year of the hallway ambush, where they terrified their floormates with toy guns from the dollar store. It was also when they started hanging out for its own sake. Neither being the sort to trust easily, being basically paranoid bastards, they came to an accord rare in the college experience of either.

The next year (our hero's last as an undergraduate) was the best. Our hero had finally found himself a girlfriend, and was head over heels in love. The Scumfuck's relationship with the psychotic cunt who would later nearly destroy him was at its best. The boys were happy... and still taking Arnis. It was our hero's only class on Fridays, and he almost never skipped it. After class, the two would walk to the Scumfuck's dorm, bullshitting, while they waited for the soon-to-be Psycho Ex to pick them up for their ritual Friday dinner.

Things had become almost domestic. When our heo's girlfriend was in town, she and the Ex had a female to talk to while the boys dicked around and contemplated world domination.

When our hero graduted, the Scumfuck gave him the graduation presents he has gotten the most use out of- a compass, a knife, and some Army manuals on improvised munitions and boobytraps. The least expensive presents are always the best.

Over the next year, while our Hero farted around working at a lumberyard and spending as much tme as possible around his girlfriend in Alaska, the Scumfuck was the only one he made any effort to keep in touch with. It was a bad year for the Scumfuck. His Grandfather (in biology- socially, the man was his father) fell ill and died. The psycho girlfriend proceeded to make his life increasingly unbearable. Our hero paid a visit to Indiana that fall, before things truly went to shit, ostensibly to work on his Graduate School application- really, to spend time with his girlfriend and to see his old comrade in arms.

By the next winter, the Scumfuck was out of school. Our hero, however, returned to Indiana in earnest, endeavoring to attain in-state residence for his second attempt at graduate application- and to be near the girlfriend, of course.

The scumfuck was a short distance across town, living with the Psycho Grilfriend downstairs from two of his old friends from his hometown.

When they broke up, and he moved in with the friends, our hero started spending more and more time there. After all, they were some of his only frends in the area.

The next year would see our hero's relationship with HIS girlfriend end.

The night he got the word, the Scumfuck had a chunk of venison in the crockpot and invited him over. There, drunk on Scotch and playing Twisted Metal: Black, our hero fed himself and dealt with the emotional shock.

The next year, he and the Scumfuck (and the two amigos) were roommates. It was a time of great poverty for all of them, but it was a year of great promise. The strange little family started to gel, in weird ways.

Our hero moved out when the lease was up (mostly because he expected to be leaving the state in short order), and did one of his patented disappearing acts. Still, after he got a job at Crane, and found the old place to be more or less on the way home, they saw more of him.


Particularly when the baby came along. The year pased largely in a blur, but the next apartment of each of them turned out to be on opposite ends of town.

No matter. The next year and a half would have our hero seeing more of the Scumfuck and his family than he had when he'd lived with them.

And when the time came for him to leave Indiana, saying goodbye to his weekends and game nights with them would be the hardest.

For all of you who found a job introduction or a spouse in college, you have my condolences. There just aren't enough awesome Scumfucks to go around.