After dinner at work last night, I met a new postdoc working down the hall from my office. I said hello, attempting to overcome my social awkwardness, and asked what type of research she does in the chemistry department. She replied “I’m an experimentalist. You, ahem, must be a theorist.” Whoa!

How in the spirit of chemistry did she know?! So I asked. She replied “I can just tell.” Baffling! Then I looked down and realized the first corollary and theorem, in my developing theory of how to not behave like a theorist (hereby termed atheorism):

Corollary 1: Chicken noodle soup shrapnel on a shirt is neither necessary nor sufficient to indicate someone is a theorist.

Theorem 1: Chicken noodle soup shrapnel on a male wearing a t-shirt that says “Visionary Women: Challenging assumptions and inspiring change” from 1993 is sufficient but not necessary to indicate the male is a theorist.

It turned out that I had forgotten to bring dining utensils with my dinner to work. Slurping Campbell’s chicken noodle soup seemed like a good idea at dinner time. Forgetfulness is also typical theorist behavior and will be a later theorem, when my sinful theorist nature catches up with me.

Sincerely,
A devoted atheorist