Retweets Earn College Guy Date with Lolo Jones

Man, things have certainly changed since my day. Back when I was in college, you had to really put forth an effort if you wanted to land a date with a famous international athlete. What happened to the classics like staking out her house, memorizing the obscure minutiae of her biography for conversation-starter purposes, and begging/sobbing until she sympathetically caved in? Kids these days only need Twitter and a handful of loyal followers, evidently; no wonder all the youths are lazy and unemployed and ruining America.

Two weeks ago, Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones agreed to go on a date with user Bubby Lyles (who attends the University of Georgia) if he could earn over 150,000 retweets (whatever those are). An impressive online campaign soon commenced, and against all odds Lyles was able to earn the requisite number of retweets needed to secure the romantic evening.

Upon being asked why he set his sights on Jones, Lyles had lots to say:

"I remember watching her in the Olympics last year. She was a cute girl. I know that sounds so stupid, you probably watch TV and say she’s good looking and won’t think twice about it. … She seems like she has a really great personality. She has good morals, which I’m about, too. She seems like a really good person, which is what I’m looking for. She’s in shape. I work out six days a week myself. She says she eats a lot, I know about that because I’m always hungry. I train hard myself, not as hard as her, she’s an Olympian. It seems like we have little things in common. I figure why not go for it."

Lyles said he would have to insist on paying for the date since it’s “the gentlemanly thing to do,” which is surprising because I figured he’d just use KickStarter.