College campuses are filled with all kinds of people. These people come from different backgrounds, different incomes, different races, different places, and countless other distinctions that fill them with their own, unique robustness.

It pretty much guarantees that I’ll run into some person who doesn’t have a lot of tact, or has a lot of “ideas” about other people here. Maybe it’s the long-running, universally-accepted idea of the college campus as a land of liberals that took a bit of a nose dive in my heart.

Case in point: My dear friend and fellow Whim geek Steve Glassbrenner and I were walking back from Club Fair early on Friday, Aug. 24, to drive down to Rural Retreat and see fellow Whimmers Josh Nibert and Zac Martin perform with our friend Thomas in their band Couchboy.

Steve and I were discussing the success of the mud wrestling that ROC-TV’s Club Fair display featured. Some of the girls who were wrestling were members of the girls’ rugby team, members of which Steve plans to put in his upcoming television show, The Dogg Show. From what I could tell, the girls had a good time. Steve’s show got some exposure and the girls' rugby team will, too.

As we walked into Heth Plaza, two very sweet-looking young women walked up beside us, and one of them asked, “So did you like the mud wrestling? You know, being the guys that you are?”

Being the raging cynic that I am, I can spot sarcasm. But this girl was dead serious. She honestly believed that Steve and I were two guys whose lives were centered on Penthouse, beer, football and “The Man Show.” So, I said- rather, shouted-my answer to her question:

“Yes, I loved it, because I am a man, and all men are perverts. If something does not involve sex I do not care about it at all. Vote Republican, it’s easier than thinking! Rush Limbaugh is my hero!” Or something very, very close to that.

Yeah, it seems pretty stupid now. There’s no way I could usurp Dan Rather’s or Jerry Orbach’s crowns for quick-witted remarks, but I was proud of myself right then. My comment included everything that is often-and often wrongly- associated with the male gender.

The humor of my retort aside, it sure had an impact on those girls. They walked away, not saying a single word to either Steve or I, heads hung, probably not in shame, but complete fear of someone who actually called them on their unfounded bias. Even if they had said something, neither Steve nor I would have heard; Steve was laughing too hard.

I hope those girls don’t walk around with their men-are-pigs attitudes masquerading as feminists. That’s one of the biggest enemies of the wonderful concept that feminism must deal with, the misconception. And those two girls seem to have bought into it. Maybe as they expose themselves to the marketplace of ideas that almost all college campuses are, they’ll open their minds and let these ideas in for their own judgment. I had to throw away a lot of ideas and bring in a lot of new ones to get where I am today.

If any of you girls out there think that putting down men and circulating tired, old men-bashing e-mail forwards is feminism, read Simone De Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. You’ll be surprised, hopefully pleasantly.

Some of us don’t change, however. I guess some of us actually graduate from high school a lot later than others.

As for the girls’ rugby team, Steve plans to join them on the field for a segment in his show, where he says he’s going to get his butt kicked.