I think some people saw her, learned what her major was, then concluded it was too good to be true. Also, it was hard for a lot of guys to think with 100% efficiency in her presence.
I wish people thought more highly of men. I think that this kind of sentiment is inexcusable in the workplace. We're (mostly) all adults here. People are perfectly capable of working around attractive people.
If you're an actual post-pubescent person, you could do a simple experiment: Try to do serious work with half the screen playing video of attractive people, then try it with video of three-toed sloths. Do they require the same amount of executive functioning? The same amount of energy? Assuming of course that you're romantically indifferent to sloths, that the number of cuts per second is roughly equal, etc.
Suppressing phylogenetically old parts of the brain is never free, even when it's desirable. Is this sentiment inexcusable in the workplace?
[1] for example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109...
The counter argument then is that it is because of society that they are weaker. The same could be argued here: it is because of society's conditioning of men that they can't think straight when around attractive women.
I wish people thought more highly of men...People are perfectly capable of working around attractive people.
This was something I observed firsthand. Hardly scientific, of course, but still. I've also experienced palpable disdain and hostility from professors, up until the first test was graded, and they realized I was one of the top scoring students. There's just this slowly fading cultural phenomenon where some people expect certain professions to be populated by males who fit a certain mold.
Yes, people are perfectly capable of working around attractive people. In those contexts, there's time to acclimate and time to get to know them as people. As a college student, there are other contexts where there aren't the same strictures as a workplace and all you have to go on at first is what they look like in cutoff shorts and a "farmer's daughter" getup. (I once saw her have that effect on a visiting prof in that outfit.)
It happens to guys too. At the end of the day, humans are really bizarre creatures.
Do other men really think this way? If so, then I carry a considerable advantage over my peers who are afflicted with diminished mental capacity in the presence of an attractive woman.
I'm a heterosexual male in my mid 20s and attractive women do not phase me at all. After my brain acknowledges the presence of an attractive woman, it simply moves on to the next thing. So what if she is attractive? If you care to take a few passing glances at her... ok, then what? Are you going to stare at her all day? Why? That isn't boring? She's just a woman; one of billions who qualify for the subjective title of "attractive". I just don't understand.
Most men don't find it necessary to "make a move" on every attractive woman they pass on the sidewalk, why then should they be in a constant state of anguish because the attractive woman is present in the room and not passing by on the street?
Hint: It's rude to hit on people you barely know in a context that's not explicitly social. (Edit: Even there it's not exactly a master stroke. It's always a good plan to get to know people before you "hit" on them)
But, I could be wrong too.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#...
Yes, I know it's a comedy site and they're over-exaggerating their points, but most of the time they base them on actual research.