Gripping stranger #6: Original Hipster

Britpop helmet hair, massive headphones, leather mod jacket, tight pants, layer of asshole: you really had it all. And the fact that your young life had culminated into that obligatory TA position for none other than a Psychology 100 class at UBC looked like it sat obnoxiously on the face of your very existence every time you entered that lecture hall in the Henry Angus Building Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. You'd sit and glare among the 200 or so of us as we tried to stay awake to listen to the professor talk about her rat experiments and the mysteries of the brain that most of us lacked the sophistication to appreciate. Sometimes I would see you around campus with your headphones on, messenger bag full of psychology textbooks and used CDs, possibly fresh from breaking the hearts of young women who also frequented the Purple Onion on the now-defunct Britpop nights. You always seemed vastly older than everyone but I realize now that was likely more a marker of my own youth than your actual age, because when you are 18 you think anyone over the age of 21 is ancient. In reality you were probably 25 and deeply resentful of the swarms of 18-year-olds your job forced you to deal with on an everyday basis. Now I see you around Main Street sometimes and wonder how you are.