“What do you think of me?” asks the professor, and it isn't rhetorical. Nobody wants to answer, of course. It's the third week of classes, and even a freshman can spot a loaded question. But when the doctor repeats himself one of his students remembers that he was a clown in high school.

"You're a pot head," the kid calls out, and when the class breaks into surprised laughter Doc Waters laughs, too.

"What makes you think that?”

The kid isn't going to answer, but the professor waits with an expectant smile on his lips and so eventually the kid says that it's the long hair.

It's funny; I don't think I would've gone there. Doc Waters’ hair is long, but its curls have been combed out into shining waves, and it's neatly trimmed. He's wearing a dress shirt. If I were in this kid's place, I might've been tempted to tell the lecturer that he was a manipulative asshole instead. I can't think of another sort of person who would ask their class a question like that. He has a doctorate in psychology, though, so I suppose calling him manipulative is a touch redundant.

You and I both know, of course, that this isn't about the doctor's insecurities, though it is an exercise in self-consciousness.

What the doctor's really asking: what do you see, and why?

This kid sees long hair and thinks of drugs even though those aren't inherently connected at all. But he’s spent eighteen years learning about surfers and hippies and the way their dirty locks tangle and catch the light as they light up, and so he's inferred a connection between the doctor’s long dark shining hair and cannabis.

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The professor isn't a pot head. What kind of addict could stand so straight in face of half a thousand students? This kid was running with the desire to make a joke and one aspect of one physical feature, but he brings up a good point. If we are going to argue that the psychologist is an orderly academic, we should perhaps also ask why such an orderly person would bite just one thumbnail to the quick.

To the point:

Our students. What do you see, and why?

I’ll tell you what Doctor Waters sees, because he has seen them. He watched the student lead Sybil down the stairway tonight, and he hid his grin in a hand as he watched them walk past the last row they sat in. And when our graduate student had noticed, she’d grinned back– she’d won a beer from Sybil, and only a few weeks into the semester.

Of course he’s noticed them: it’s obvious that he’s all about order, and their experiment sends new ripples through the auditorium every session as displaced students displace others. This man knows a psychology experiment when he’s in one, so he sees scientists just like him.

And that’s an easy conclusion to reach, don’t you think? They're sitting quietly up there, half again as close as they were in the last lecture. Sybil - well, Syb is simple.

He's the perfect student: Watch over his shoulder and you'll see him typing out a flawless transcript of the lecture. He’s not late, as a rule, and he doesn't skip class. Why would anyone think any further about someone like him?

You see someone just as harmless when you look at the woman. Don't you, Gabe?

I know. You see someone soft and sweet and small, and you think I’ve gone a bit mad. Yes, yes, you can see the mischief in her too, in the way she slouches in her chair and doesn't take notes. In her little experiment. That's not enough for this, though, is it?

It isn't. But you’ve seen her fabricated smile. She's a lie. The woman isn’t small and she isn't sweet; the way she curls in on herself disguises her height and makes her look soft and yielding. But the soft people take notes like Sybil, and they never watch anything with a look like that on their faces.