A futile quest for pretty boys

Where have all the hot boys gone? That's right. I'm asking because it seems like they have all disappeared.

I know they're out there -- at the beginning of the year, there were bunches of them wandering around the Hopkins campus. Yes, right here at Hopkins, there were cute guys wearing nice clothes, walking around freshly showered and clean-shaven.

They brightened up the lunch scene at Levering and provided an extra incentive to get to class early enough to get a seat with a view. Seemingly always en route either to or from the gym, they often re-enacted the famous beach volleyball scene from the early Tom Cruise movie Top Gun when they played Frisbee on the quads and displayed their perfectly toned six-pack abs on the Beach.

And then, something horrible happened. The hot boys vanished. Hordes of fuzzy, sweatpants-wearing replacements appeared, still donning their squeaky shower shoes and smelling like Febreeze. They now live in their hoodies and despise belts, cologne and any form of physical activity not involving a Playstation.

Gentlemen, please come back. The girls here miss you. Honestly, we do. We're doing our part -- at the crack of dawn and in the freezing rain, the lovely ladies of Hopkins trek across campus in murderously cute shoes and drafty little skirts. Nine times out of ten, we wash, dry and coordinate our outfits. We go to the gym whether we feel like it or not, and we even put on deodorant before we go.

Granted, this isn't all for you. We girls are generally far more aware of our fabulousness than guys, and we enjoy grooming ourselves for the most part. We probably dress mostly to impress each other, since you boys usually don't appreciate our fashion genius. But, let's face it, none of us enjoys shaving our legs, yet we do it anyway. The majority of our motivation for working out might originate in our desire to eat whatever strikes our fancy, but don't act like you don't enjoy the results just as much as we do.

And how have we been rewarded for our efforts? All the hot men of Hopkins have run away from Homewood, and now we have but a few joys left to hold us over.

There's Charlie, the gorgeous yoga instructor at the Rec. Center (who thankfully teaches three times a week). Let's not forget those adorable All-Nighters, with their smooth serenading and oh-so-sexy suspenders. And of course, there are the rugged outdoorsmen of the Hopkins Outdoors Club -- they can canoe, climb, kayak, ski and do who knows what else out there in the wilderness.

And at Alpha Phi's King of Hearts fundraising event, the fraternities bring their hot guys out of captivity, cruelly show them off and then lock them back up again. Similar teasers occurred at the Career Fair a few weeks ago, when the male population of Hopkins apparently felt like dusting off their hotness and taking it out for a spin.

It's a shame that the rare professional event is the only thing that can get you guys to prove that you all own suits, ties, cologne and non-athletic, non-flip-flop, actually nice shoes. Yet average day after average day, you still wear sweatpants. That's just not going to cut it anymore.

The girls are starving for some eye candy, and it's time for you fine gentlemen to make a contribution. I, for one, am sick and tired of looking forward to drooling over the Midshipmen from the Naval Academy at the airport this Thanksgiving.

I've also had my fill of watching Desperate Housewives and of waiting for close-ups of Tom Brady during Patriots games in order to feed my appetite for hot men -- especially when there are hot men right here at Hopkins, but they're just too damn lazy to make an appearance.

So, gentlemen, please accept this plea for your speedy return. Approximately 2,000 of us are waiting for you with hungry eyes.