Genius: Sophomore College Student Asks Girl on Date via Outlook Web App

He’s the hero we need, not the one we deserve.

And like many great heroes before him, he wished to remain anonymous. So for the sake of this article, we’ll call him Steve. Steve is a sophomore student at John Brown University, a small private Christian college in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

On Monday morning, Steve was just like the rest of us: sitting bored in English class. Then Steve did something amazing. Steve became a hero.

It started out like any other day in 9 a.m. English. Steve was on his laptop, studiously pretending to take notes. Browsing through EagleNet (John Brown’s student website), he was about to click a classified ad from one of the film students looking for an actor to star in an upcoming movie, but he made a fateful decision:

“Something, I don’t know who or what, led me to click ‘sign into Outlook Web App’ instead.”

After briefly scrolling through 7 of his 68 unread emails, he spotted the calendar button on the upper right corner of his screen. He clicked it, and in so doing made the first tremor of an earthquake that would forever shake JBU dating culture.

Steve, having never before used the calendar function, was a bit lost at first. Thankfully, he thought back to one of the many valuable lessons he learned at JBU Orientation:

“I remembered hearing something about making events and inviting people from that first-week thingy we did my freshman year,” he said, “They told us we could use it to set up meetings with professors or advisors or other nerdy stuff like that. Lame, right?”

He recalled that at this point he nearly moved on to playing League of Legends, as 40 minutes still remained in class. But then he had an epiphany, a stroke of genius and fate equivalent to that of the apple hitting Newton’s head or lightning hitting Benjamin Franklin’s kite. As he so eloquently put it, “I was like, ‘yo, dude, I could, like, use this Outlook thing to ask some chick out. Sick!’”

Steve then proceeded to choose which unknowing young lady he would attempt to sweep off her feet. Immediately, his mind zeroed in on three options: “that Senior girl from work,” “the girl I sit next to in English class,” and “that cute brunette I awkwardly wave at on the quad every day.”

One option was quickly eliminated: “Wait. I am in English class, and she’s right here,” he thought as his prolonged, dumbfounded glance was met with a confused scowl from the girl on his right. “Too obvious,” he decided.

With two choices remaining, he began to sweat at the thought of making a decision.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” read his English professor, quoting Robert Frost. “Retweet,” muttered Steve under his breath.

Then Steve remembered that the Senior girl in question was actually engaged to his Bible Study leader. “Welp, I guess that leaves me only one choice,” he mused, “must mean it’s meant to be.”

The young romantic then began transcribing his modern-day message in a bottle via the “New Event” Button on the Outlook app. He clicked “add attendees,” and typed in the young lady’s name. The subject line read, “D8?” So simple, yet so profound.

He then went on to compose the body of his letter, like all the great romantics of old:

“I know why Solomon had 1000 wives - cuz he never met u! So uh u seem cool wanna date? If not, it’s all good in the hood.” the beautiful electronic manuscript read. Steve nodded his head in satisfaction. “Don’t wanna seem too excited,” he thought, “Girls like dudes who don’t care.”

Then, with one stroke of the “enter” key, Steve sent this masterful work of literature and romance, and in so doing, went from regular college bum to hero.

At publishing time, our resident Romeo still had not heard back from his Juliet, but he remained optimistic.

“I mean, who would turn this guy down?” he chuckled, pointing to himself.

Regardless of outcome, Steve’s creative, bold innovation in using the Outlook Web App will go down as one of the iconic dating breakthroughs of our time.

Even he realized some of the looming implications of his revolutionary endeavor: “I mean, before this I thought that calendar thing was super dumb. But, like, who needs Instagram D.M.’s when you’ve got the Outlook Web App?”

One small step for ladies’-man.

One giant leap for ladies’-man-kind.