The Banality is a riddle, wrapped in an enigma. So don't even try to figure her out.

Last week was "self" week in class. Self-esteem, self-concept, self-evaluation maintenance, self-presentation, self-schemas, self-fulfilling prophecy, etc., etc.

One of these self-related concepts that I tend to think about a lot is self-monitoring, which refers to the extent to which people use situational cues to guide their behavior. I'm a super high self-monitor, which means that I agree with statements such as, "In different situations and with different people, I often act like very different persons," and, "I am good at games like charades." (Seriously, I could kick your ass at charades.) Close friends often tell me that their first impression of me was totally off. I don't think of this as necessarily a bad thing, although Mr. Banality and I have had intense discussions about my tendency to be too business-like with some of my students.

One associated thing that irritates me to no end is when my students draw incorrect conclusions about who I am from my professional behavior. More specifically, it really annoys me when students assume that I'm some naïve, socially awkward nerd. (O.K, admittedly, I can be socially awkward. And I'm pretty nerdy. But I'm not that naïve.) I find this most commonly occurs among male students who try to embarrass me by bringing up inappropriate sexual topics in class or by flirting with me in that way that mean high school boys flirt with the unpopular girl in school to make fun of her (you've seen the bad teen movies). I find it offensive because it's so disrespectful, but I think what bothers me even more is the audacity of their assumption that they have me all figured out. They assume I'm so unsophisticated that I won't even realize they're making fun of me.

I recognize, of course, that these few arrogant students are likely low self-monitors, and because they don't alter their behavior to fit the situation (which helps explain their inappropriate behavior in class), it never once occurs to them that other people might be more complex than they appear.

I have a good friend who, while very, very nerdy, is hardly unsophisticated. We chatted about this very issue of self-monitoring the last time I saw him. Before he got married, female students would flirt with him shamelessly, assuming he was inexperienced and rigidly puritanical, and thus, harmless. In one of his first-year courses, he asked students to choose nicknames so he could maintain confidentiality when posting grades. One smart ass wrote down "The Taint" as his choice, probably thinking it would be hilarious to see that phrase on a class grade list posted outside the clueless professor's door.

I should mention that my friend is clever. And he has a delightfully wicked mean streak.

He called the student into his office and said, in the most painfully patronizing tone possible, "I wanted to talk to you in private because I didn't want to embarrass you in front of the other students. I don't know if some of your friends convinced you to choose the nickname you wrote down, but I just thought you should know that the nickname you chose is a slang term for perineum. Do you know what the perineum is? It's the area between . ."

The student responded (somewhat defensively), "I know what it means."

My friend asked (in a tone indicating that he did not believe for one second that the student had known what the term meant), "O.K., for argument's sake, we'll say you did know. If you knew the meaning of that phrase, why would you choose it for your nickname?"

The student shrugged. "It was funny."

My friend very slowly and deliberately explained, "I know you don't know much about college yet, and that's why we have first-year seminars. But college isn't like what you've seen in the movies. That nickname is inappropriate and unprofessional. Do you understand why it's inappropriate?"

The conversation went on a bit after that, and the student left the office looking very embarrassed about acting like an unsophisticated fool in front of his professor.

Oh, and another item on the self-monitoring scale that is indicative of high self-monitoring? "I would probably make a good actor." Outstanding performance, my friend.