“It’s like a colony of ants, Sarah. You know how those work?” Joe paused, for dramatic effect. He knew she didn’t know anything about ants or their colonies, which was great, since he didn't either. However, he'd just failed a bio exam on it, so he felt like he could use the materials in the questions to talk about them.
He continued, “You see, in a colony of ants, especially red ones, there's one of them that tries to give all the others orders to carry out, only sometimes, they get sidetracked and fail, which is really bad, like, for the colony as a whole.”
Joe studied Sarah's face and learned nothing. She looked like she wasn't even listening. How was he going to turn this into a successful break up with her?
“Are you breaking up with me?” Sarah asked.
She put her hands over her face and started making noises that Joe was pretty sure was crying, but he wasn't sure. The school cafeteria was really loud and he didn't want to lean in and attract any attention. The last thing he wanted was to be "that guy," breaking up with his girlfriend in public the week of graduation.
“No...I mean, not really," he replied. "I’m just saying, you know, since we’re both going away to college, we're sort of like a colony of ants. Like, we each gotta do what we can do, for the team. And the team, uh, America, well, it needs me to do work.” Joe felt pretty good about his analogy now, but Sarah’s face was still buried in her hands.
He felt bad for her. She was a good girlfriend. He just wanted to expand his horizons with other girls. Plus, he’d hooked up with her friend at a party last weekend, so he wanted to do this before one of the other cheerleaders told her.
Meanwhile, Sarah had her hands over her face to conceal her laughter. Did Joe really think he was going to hurt her feelings? She hadn’t been faithful to him for six months, and she hadn't even tried to hide it the whole last month, hoping he'd find out and take the hint.
She peeked to see who was watching and quickly covered her eyes again when they landed on the jock table. She'd recently hooked up with Bill, Joe's teammate, and she'd also made out with Grant behind Joe’s back, literally, at last weekend's party.
Joe was like, so dumb.