When I first went to college, all the girls in my freshman year had a craze for sleeping with this very ordinary guy called Norm. He had limp blond hair and a mustache like a neurasthenic mouse. He was skinny and about 5' 7". He was neither pretty nor ugly. He was nondescript.

He was pretty good in bed, but nothing remarkable. He was a nice guy, but he could also be a jerk (he was nineteen). Really he was just a guy called Norm. Finally we chased him so much he started hiding out in this one girl's dorm room, begging everyone to leave him alone.

It was really one of those "tulip mania" things. We knew it was funny at the time, but we couldn't stop wanting to have sex with Norm. I'm willing to bet that, in later life, when Norm tried to tell people about it, they did not believe him for a second.

There is no real moral to this story except that if you're popular, or if you're not popular, there may well be no reason. It may just be a Norm Phenomenon that cannot be explained.