Poor Carson

Carson's got a sword...watch out.

As the lone guy in our group, surrounded by seven girls, Carson was doomed from the start to be constantly singled out.  Nearly every time we took a tour, met a new tutor, or even ordered dinner at a pub, people would take mental note of the gender ratio in the group and ask, "You the only bloke, then?"  Their reactions to this ranged from sympathy to teasing admiration.  Below are some of my favorite incidents resulting from having only one guy in the group.

• During the Galleries of Justice tour (which, to be fair, included Andy as well), Carson was the one picked to model the masks prisoners used to have to wear to prevent them recognizing each other and making friends.  I believe the matron's remark was something like, "There, now - isn't that an improvement?" when we could no longer see his face.
• When we went on the ghost tour of Nottingham, Carson was automatically selected to reenact the, shall we say, unfortunate (and awkward) end of Edward II's life.  The tale involves a red hot poker.  Let's leave it at that.
• I was not present for this one, but I heard about it later.  While trying to assert his opinion in a discussion, Carson was outnumbered and complained, "This is a matriarchy!"  Someone responded, "No, no, it's a democracy...with a female majority."
• In the hostel in London, as soon as Carson went into the bathroom for a minute, we all started changing into our outfits for the evening.  When he tried to come out, we shouted, "Carson, stay in there!" and made him wait for several more minutes.
• At the Rescue Rooms our last night in Nottingham, Allie and Lauren had brought their boyfriends, and Steve and Gavin were also with us.  Someone asked Carson if it would be weird not to be surrounded by girls anymore, and he said, "Yeah, this is the largest concentration of guys I've been around for four weeks!"
• At several points during our final week, we all joked that Carson may have forgotten how to interact with other males after being surrounded by girls for a month.
• The phrase "Poor Carson" was uttered, sarcastically and sincerely, probably several hundred times.

Basically, Carson had to deal with girl talk, jokes about his "player" status, and a general absence of other males his age (except Andy, but that was only for one week) for a month.  

If my group members remember any other stories, I will of course update this post!