PDA (Pee-Dee-Ay)
- personal digital assistant.
- Informal. public display of affection:
Many people are uncomfortable with kissing in public or any other PDA.
It is a beautiful Tuesday morning, and you arrive at school. Still bleary-eyed from staying up too late last night, (thanks for the homework, Mr. Ohrn) you wander through the halls, just waiting for the bell to ring. That is when you make the mistake of turning onto the hall between rooms D-5 and D-7, attempting to get something from your locker. You are met there with the sight of two individuals who enjoy the company of one another, making that fact clear for the world to see. Despite it only being 8:57 am, they are in a fierce lip-locking makeout session. In the middle of the halls. At a public high school. At 8:57 am (now 8:58 – you stared at them in your tired state for almost a minute before realizing what was going on).
This is not a rare scenario for many students at San Marcos. I believe that PDA at school is excessive, so I wanted to find out what some of the students and staff had to say, through direct interviews, observations, and surveys. Only one person who was surveyed claimed to never see PDA around school. Every other response had encountered it at least one to three times per week. On an individual level, I spoke to many people, insistent on understanding the general school consensus on PDA.
“As someone who just got dumped, I think PDA is a good thing, and we should have it more. I encourage you if you do have a partner to go out in the middle of your hallway, right where it says the little letter of what wing you’re in, and just start macking it dude,” said junior Roman Gislimberti (6’3”) (benches 260).
The insight he provided regarding the positives to PDA presented this topic in another light: PDA shows affection for your significant other and lets them know how much you care about them.
Although Roman’s wise words gave a different perspective, my opinion on this topic remains the same. PDA at school is needless. While seeing your significant other at school can be nice, you are also able to see them before and after school or off campus. I hope that people can realize that and move their PDA to non-school zones. Unfortunately, as Valentine’s Day gets closer and closer, the amount of PDA will likely increase.
Many people are single during this time, including junior Ayden Welch (6’1”) (varsity volleyball).
“It’s hella annoying, get a room,” said Ayden Welch (very straight to the point).
While you can make the case that somebody who is single will likely say that, I interviewed someone who is the complete opposite – junior Ilan Abramov, somebody who will have a valentine come the 14th.
“I don’t think it should exist – school is not the place for those activities and if people want to do that they should go to the bathroom,” said Abramov.
Some of the educators at school are on the same side as Welch and Abramov – SBCEO Distinguished Educator award recipient and San Marcos chemistry teacher Mrs. Samantha Lambert had some insight to the topic as well:
“I think it’s quite silly […] I think that sometimes it’s a little excessive, but you do you I guess.”
After carefully examining the responses of the names above, along with many others, I have come to a conclusion. While the overall idea of PDA may not be too bad, school is not the place for it. Spend some quality time with your significant other outside of school, use that as your time to display your affection towards each other. Take it from me – a former participant, PDA at a high school is just not it, use school as an opportunity to learn something (maybe) and see friends.
