Dear Clare,

Blushing Bypasser

Dear Blushing Bypasser,

I appreciate your letter and especially the very creative name you gave yourself. Kudos to you for the alliteration! It shows you are creative, which shows you are not a boring dud and that you can gain more confidence with the ladies! I'm thankful for your letter because it touches on an issue I think every student at this university can relate to: how to talk to members of the opposite sex. If you are the type of person who gets so nervous that you feel like you're going to pull a Stan-from-South-Park and have vomit spew out of your mouth whenever you're talking to a cute girl, don't despair — there's hope. Even Stan gets the girl eventually.

At a recent showing of the hilarious flick, "40-year-old Virgin," I was shocked to behold that the film's advice about speaking with ladies is the same I've given to my guy friends for the past four years: ask questions! Now, you can think I'm cheap for actually using the advice in this not-so-scholarly film, but I assure you, it has been tested in this fair city for the past few years and yielded successful results (I promise I thought of it first). I wouldn't advise you try to be as mysterious as our pure and loveable friend in the film because that would just be awkward, but all a gentleman has to do is ask a girl some questions to get the ball rolling!

Questions should not resemble any of the corny pickup lines we have all heard hundreds of times. You are lucky, Blushing Bypasser, in the fact that you are good friends with this cute girl's best friend! Use this link! Casually ask your buddy questions about the girl like, "Hey, I've seen Bianca around a lot lately. What's she into?" or "So what do you and Bianca do when you hang out?" Use the information you receive the next time you run into the girl on campus. If you are told she's really into Broadway Shows (as I'm sure you hope she would be) the next time you see her you can say something like, "Hey! (exchange greetings) — so my buddy was telling me you really like Broadway shows, do you have a favorite?" Even if you don't know what a Broadway show is, asking her questions about things she likes will get her excited and talking. Don't lie and pretend to be into things you can't even spell (I did this once with a boy and baseball and wanted to tear my hair out at a game we went to — who knew a baseball game could be four hours long?!), but try to ask her about things she's interested in. If she's even the slightest bit social and normal, she will continue the convo with either more talk about Broadway shows or she will ask you something else (let's hope, for your sake, it's the latter).

There is always a chance that the conversation won't take flight like you want it to. Meeting a new person, I proceeded to ask questions and after five minutes she said, "God, what is this? An interview?" I promptly informed her that if she had reciprocated with questions for me, it would've turned into a conversation, but that she had failed at the task. Needless to say we never became good friends. I promise this probably won't happen to you, and if it does, you are honestly better off without her.

The big thing about being nervous is to just take a deep breath and relax! Easier said than done, I know, so practice this little trick with people you have no real interest in at all. That way you are perfecting your talking techniques. After the initial hellos, "How are you"s (actually wait for the response, please) just deliver your prepared question and watch in awe as the girl just talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. The cure for nervousness is confidence, and confidence can be gained by doing a little preparation and getting the inside scoop on your crush.

People usually love talking about themselves, so do a little research on this cutie and you'll blow her away with your conversation (or rather, interviewing) skills.

Good luck my friend,

Clare

Dear Clare,

Sweating Sally

Dear Sweating Sally,

Thanks for your question — you guys are doing so well with the alliteration! I'm happy to inform you that there are things you can do to decrease your perspiration! Hurrah! There are prescription deodorants available that you can obtain if you think your problem is serious enough to warrant a doctor's appointment, or you can purchase other deodorants that are stronger than normal anti-perspirants and less of a pain to obtain than those the doc will give you. "Centri-dri" is one such product that you can purchase at Walgreen's for $5.99 plus tax. You put on this product before you go to sleep every night, and it will stay on the next day even after bathing (I would hope you are doing this daily — if not, that might be your first step in alleviating the problem). "Centri-dri" is apparently "prescription strength" and might just do the trick, my petite little friend.

If you think you are beyond what Walgreen's can offer, Botox injections (these are painful!), electrical current treatments (these sound painful), and oral medication are other possible solutions you can talk about with your physician. Be sure to ask about the side effects of these, as some can result in drowsiness or body dryness (I'm going to leave it to your imagination to figure out what exactly that means). Remember to weigh the cost and benefits of these medications carefully; there's no point in not sweating if you are just going to be falling asleep all over the place, or dealing with some other unwanted side effect.

If none of these are successful and it gets to a point where you no longer want to venture out into the real world because of your stickiness, there are surgeries that claim to decrease excessive armpit sweating. Two of these procedures, Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy (ETS), which involves clamping two of the nerve cells responsible for excessive sweating, and Retrodermal curettage (the scarier name, for sure — curettage?) which is similar to liposuction and involves removing the affected tissue. I am not advocating surgery, but am merely presenting you with some options. My medical source hadn't heard much about these surgeries and said they were probably a last resort. There are side effects to surgical options, which include a number of things from potential organ damage, to excessive sweating in other parts of your body. I'm not going to go into the technicalities of the surgeries because I am getting slightly nauseated saying the word "armpit" so many times, but you can get more information about procedures yourself at www.sweat-armpit.com (this is actually a website). But like, don't get the surgery.

A simple way to decrease your excessive sweating is to stick with clothing that is specifically made to deal with your dilemma. Cotton clothing is the worst because it gets wet right away. The best are "wicking" materials like polypropylene used in sport clothing like running shorts, shirts, socks, or sportsbras. Sporting-goods stores would carry a wide variety of such items.

If all else fails, I advise you to stick with only black shirts for the rest of your life. Black is slimming anyway and like they say, black is the new … well, black.

Good luck my friend,

Clare

P.S. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss my thoughts about some social faux pas that people have no or little control over such as sweating, bathroom business or getting toilet paper stuck to your shoe. Without getting too technical, I would like to know why these are all such unacceptable phenomena in our society today. Is it really fair to fault someone for a physicality or bodily function over which they have no control? Please reflect. And thank you to the young lady who pointed out the TP on my shoe the other day outside Hawk's rather than giggle about it with her friends. You are an example for us all.

Have a question? Get it answered! Send your questions about love, school or anything else to Clare ([email protected]) and it could appear in a future column.