The Five Stages of Graduating
As I begin to embark on the abyss that is post-grad life, I can’t help but reminisce on some of my college experiences that could have only happened in college. Only in college could you and a friend go back to a frat house of a fraternity that openly hates your sorority to drink wine and watch “Hook” and then take a nap on their couch before you go home. Only in college is it ok to knock on the boys’ door across the street and beg them to kill the bat that’s flying around your basement. Only in college is it socially acceptable to wear last night’s make up to class the next day and then out again that night. (Do people wash their face in the real world? Please don’t tell me they change their sheets regularly also!)
Maybe the above experiences just happened to me, but graduating from college feels like the death of a dear, dear friend. The University of Maryland has been my bestie for four years now and now he/she (questionable gender…so liberal!) has died in a tragic and shocking way. I seriously didn’t see this coming, despite the daily phone calls from my mother to make dinner plans for graduation weekend. The purchasing of a cap and gown from the book store was simply because large black gown is the new little black dress and I needed a new outfit for that night. My pursuit of a job was something Bizzaro Allison was doing, not Real Allison! Graduating felt like an out of body experience in which I realized Cal Ripkin Jr. was actually white, not black, and sweat through my cloak as I feared I would not get the same amount of cheers as the person before me. I did not. In my defense though, half my fan club was 75+ and their voices are quite faint.
So it’s officially Day One. I feel quite similarly to the way I did when I lost my first pet goldfish. Except unlike when I was six, I now think I can define my emotions as the Five Stages of Grief, or as I like to call it the Five Stages of Graduating. (I did take PSYC100…thanks UMD!)
Denial: When second semester hits and full SWUG life transpires, people start to bring up the dreaded graduation. From January to the last day of class, graduation didn’t seem real. So what if not one employer on the other end of my never ending, pushing the line of harassment emails was acknowledging my existence? I didn’t need a job because I was coming back to College Park on August 28th and if nothing worked out for the summer I could just babysit/work for my dad. It is an interesting thing, denial. It’s actually kind of sick. I refused to acknowledge that I was not registering for classes with my sophomore and junior friends. I refused to acknowledge that it might be my last time late night ordering Shanghai or double fisting slices of Ratsies. I also refused to acknowledge that I was amongst the oldest group of people in College Park, which as a senior girl truly makes you a creep. In: Being a Cougar, In: Being a Cougar, In: Being a Cougar. In my abridged definition of the Allison-Flal Model of the Five Stages of Graduation, next to “Denial” it will just be like:
Anger: During finals week, when I didn’t have any finals, I started to get really fucking pissed. Mostly this was taken out on my parents. You HAD to have me in 1991, didn’t you MOM? Couldn’t have waited til ’92?? I was angry at the world for bringing me to such a horrible place in my life and was taking it out on everyone but the gym- my parents, my friends, random people for breathing too loudly. Anyone who crossed my path had to deal with the Rage of Flal that week. My typical friendly gentle back tap (my technique to avoiding hugging people…check back later for more expert tips on how to minimize physical contact, an issue that may be attributed to a different set of psychological issues but one step at a time people), turned into a brutal slapping of the back of the lungs that took the wind out of 200 pound men. Every waiter was incompetent, every person I spoke to was deaf (hence the yelling phase), and everyone was the enemy. I was mad, I was angry and I was determined to destroy the world around me with the piercing looks of death that surely could shoot fire out of my eyes. If I can’t enjoy College Park, no one can!
Bargaining: The two days of graduation were filled with me begging and pleading the collegiate gods above me for just one more semester. “If you fail me in just one class, I promise to get an A next semester. I will get my first on campus job and actually make a contribution to this community. I will stop wasting my parents’ money by never cooking the food I buy. I’ll cook! I promise I’ll cook the vegetables!” I swear, as I waited to walk across the stage and get my fake diploma (my fiploma?), I spent my last seconds of being an undergraduate student auctioning off body parts for more time in college. I would have given my left foot to have the professor reading names look at my name card and say to me, “Oh Allison, you didn’t graduate! Go run back to your friends in your fabulous new black gown and have a great time because none of them graduated either! In fact, not one person in this room nor anyone else in the senior class graduated! You’re all coming back to College Park next year!” All 150 COMM grads would then run down to the bars together hand in hand where we would be greeted by all our other classmates of other majors. And all we had to do was give our left feet!
Depression:
Yes those are real tears. The second I stepped off that stage, the tears started flowing. And flowing. And flowing. Then I started hyperventilating and sweating. I couldn’t tell what were drops of sweat and what were tears…it’s all so salty! And then I started turning to all the people sitting around me. “What if I never see you again,” I say with water filled eyes. “Allison, we literally live 10 minutes away from eachother.” I got a little carried away with the wrong people. But anyway, save your “awws,” because I’m an uglier crier than Kim Kardashian. However, I feel it’s important to share what’s behind these hazel eyes with the fans. (Ok they’re really blue…but just go with it for Kelly Clarkson’s sake. I also realize the fans are my mom. Hi mom!)
I feel bad too Kim. I really, really do. And I know it’s hard to believe I have such raw emotions, but it’s true. I do cry. And no time seems more appropriate than the now. I am in full-blown depression mode right now as are all of my friends. Like can’t leave my bed, don’t you even try and turn on the lights depressed and if you dare speak anything that sounds remotely like College Park I will bust out the water works. Oh my God, someone just said Shmollege Park. I’m bawling. But can you blame me and my friends for our deep dark sadness? If you prick us do we not bleed? We do bleed, we do! And we cry. A lot. So watch out. If you see a girl with intense black eyeliner streaming down her face, that’s me and that’s makeup from three nights ago. Again, do people wash their face in the real world? I can’t handle it.
Acceptance: They say it comes. They say your 20s in The City are fun. They say once you adjust you will be fine. But right now I can’t say I’m buying it. How can I accept the fact that I can no longer go out five nights a week? How can I accept that I will no longer live in a bubble of kids who greet me with a warm smile as we walk through the streets? How can I accept a life that is not college?
Only time shall tell if “Acceptance” does exist. But until then refer to “Depression” and brush up on “Anger” because I think it’s coming back. I miss college. Like WTF?!
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Coolers and Car Rides
The concept of frat away weekend formals is straight up the weirdest thing ever. I’ve referenced them many a time, mostly raving about how I didn’t go to one and how amazing GDI stay weekend was (GDI weekends are the best weekends). However now, after going away this weekend, I feel like I can give a more comprehensive look at the whole institution of away weekends, comparing this away weekend to away weekends attended past to my coveted, coveted GDI weekend. (Seriously so sorry I missed it this year guys. I know Cornerstone wasn’t the same this past Saturday night without me.)
For said away weekends, guys without girlfriendss have three options in terms of dates- a friend, a girl he’s hooked up with like twice or a set up. A friend usually means a random girl from his floor freshmen year who may or may not have ever been to one of his frat’s parties…ever. However, guys know it’s platonic and that they can straight up fuck around all weekend and not worry about her. Bringing a girl who he has a history with (and by history I literally mean has hooked up with twice…there will be no breaking of the Three Time Rule at away weekend) probably means she is someone who he found at the bar last Loose Tuesday, met up with on Saturday night and asked on Sunday/Monday. So eager to go with her new BF, the girl says yes although she too may or may not have ever been to one of his frat’s parties…ever. And a set-up, that’s just a total random tryina go away. What do these three groups of girls have in common? Agreeing to go on a legit three-day vacation with total strangers, in which she has to go on a seven hour car ride with, share a bed/room with, go to a formal date function with, and ultimately take a seven hour car ride home with said strangers. Sounds like my Wednesday night. But to the average person, it’s really, really weird.
From the moment one gets asked to one of these things, there is so much anxiety and stress happening on the female end, starting off with coolers. Now I don’t know who decided to make coolers a thing/why every single girl in the world is an artist/why away weekends are really just a cooler competition to see which girl can paint the most ornate whisky label on a box of plastic, but it’s seriously a horrible idea. I guess I understand the point in keeping your drinks cold, but does anyone really fill their coolers with ice anyway? Also, like seriously why do we have to paint them when they literally always chip in a matter of minutes? I know that by the time these guys are seniors, they have like six coolers chilling in their basement collecting dust and cobwebs. Girls you never spoke to again slaved over those coolers! I also know about like five of my friends whose coolers didn’t even make it back. And for a cooler to not make it back, I have to wonder was the juice worth the squeeze? The worst feeling in the world is Cooler Confusion- Do I make a cooler/Are we on that level? After that comes Cooler Anxiety- I had fun making this but it’s so bad maybe I shouldn’t even bring it. But then there’s always Cooler Confidence- This is the best cooler ever made, I know my boyfriend so well and he’s going to be obsessed with it (debatable). Being that I am so clearly a bra-burning feminist and was definitely suffering from Cooler Disorders One and Two, I was vehemently against painting my cooler, planning to leave it untouched, bring it home with me and use it during my unemployed summer on the beach. Then Tuesday night happened. WARNING TO FUTURE GIRLS GOING TO AWAY WEEKENDS: Do not come home from the bars to your friends painting coolers! You will get very jealous and the cooler envy will take control of you, forcing you to ignore all rationale and start painting the cooler. You will wake up in the morning and regret it. Exhibit A:
And when it’s all said and done every girl just Pic Stitches all the sides of her cooler with a sarcastic comment about Pic Stitching her cooler, like that makes it OK. And then there’s me who doesn’t have enough sides to stitch.
Enough about the coolers. I clearly had trouble in the cooler department. The next aspect of away weekends that can be problematic is the car ride. I don’t know anyone who did less than seven hours. Places you can get to in seven hours: New York to London, LA to Hawaii, NY to Puerto Vallarta, and College Park to North Carolina. The car ride there isn’t usually bad. Everyone is so excited about the festivities to come and trying to make good first impressions that conversation tends to flow. You bond and share life stories, just you four and the open road. Things do tend to get awkward around hour four and a half, but pick up at around six. The last hour is a total rager. Then you get to away weekend, and if you didn’t know your car mates going into the weekend you probably won’t see them for 48 to 72 hours. But you just bonded so much!
You get to away weekend, find your friends who are already there. All is good and the seven hour drive definitely seems worth it. The nights are always super cohesive because it’s like everyone knows the effort you put in to get there. Sorority pretenses drop and girls are friends with sworn rush enemies. It’s revolutionary! The first night is when you establish your weekend crew of ladies aka who is going to ask you to borrow your curling iron (“Oh my god, of course! Let me curl it for you!!”) Time is limited so friendships form fast and strong.
Night one down. Time to pass out. Normally I have trouble sleeping in these situations (situations in which I am not alone in a queen sized bed, don’t have a fan blowing my mandatory artificial air on me, and am not playing whatever’s on Bravo in the background), but I was surprisingly OK this weekend. Except for the fact that I literally never, ever sleep past 9:34. I could go to bed at like 9:08 am after pulling an all nighter (because I really do that for my ridiculously hard COMM classes all the time) and I would still be wide awake by 9:34 am. No exceptions. But when you’re at an away weekend it’s awkward. The real question is, how late do you sleep at away weekend? If you wake up early, you really can’t play Candy Crush on your phone because you don’t want anyone else to know you’re awake because then what would you do? Talk before 10 am? Gasp! But then it gets to the point where you just need to get the fuck up. Except everyone else is the world sleeps past 11:30, Allison. So I lay there and twiddle my thumbs and count sheep and plan my next blog post while I wait for my non-insomniac friends in other rooms to wake up and hang out with me, all the while dying of thirst and thanking the away weekend gods that no one in my room is a loud breather.
Wakey wakey! Some boys are banging on your door yelling phrases/jokes/nicknames you don’t understand! My personal favorite part of/appeal of going to away weekend is the day drinks. Sippin’ on some brews in leggings and a waffle shirt while listening to country music. Is this heaven? No, it’s North Carolina. In reality, this is just the time where the little filter I do have goes to the wayside and I say like really inappropriate things to people who don’t know me to the point where they think I belong in a straight jacket and since it’s light out they can remember my face and forever shun me from their lives. Graduation is in two weeks. Might as well go out with a bang. Something I noticed about non-Jewish away weekends (yes I weaseled my way into a N-JAW) is that all the Jews stick together, especially during the day. I had a solid crew of…six. I just feel like no one else gets me sometimes, yano? It is kinda great though because you really shine like, “Look there’s the Jews!” Where as at a more heavily populated Jewish away weekend you really just blend right in. And who wants to blend when you can SHINE! Uggs really pop in a sea of boat shoes.
The actual formal part is just like so ridiculously miniscule in terms of the whole weekend. It’s also bizarre because these people legit just saw you looking a hot god damn diggity dog gone mess in sweats and no makeup like two hours ago, and now you’re supposed to convince them that you’re pretty and classy? You ain’t foolin’ no one, girl in the tight black dress. I, for one, decided to SWUG it and didn’t even wash my hair. Like that shit was straight up matted to my head by that point but the thought of having to use a blow dryer seriously just made me wanna die. All I needed was a bump it and some dry shampoo and this set of locks would be full of volume and free of grease. Needless to say I didn’t get my hands on a bump it nor dry shampoo so my hair just happened to be a shade darker of brown that night. This is also the night in which many, many insanely obnoxious listservs are sent, 60% by me. Don’t ask for an explanation, they don’t make sense. And for the record there were four girls in my sorority there…four.
We’re really not.
By Sunday morning there is no question on how late to sleep. The second you’re awake it’s time to PEACE THE FUCK OUT and continue to send obnoxious listservs like this:
By Sunday morning everyone is just like really, really over it and all they want to do it be home and eating bagels (that last part might just be me). You pack your bags without thinking twice about checking to see if you forgot anything. Those are minutes you just don’t have. At this point you’re also really over just like talking in general. Have you ever been in a car for seven hours of which you probably opened your mouth for six minutes? It’s at this point that the seven hour drive definitely does not seem worth it. But then you get home and say your goodbyes and realized you probably just should have talked more in the car ride home. Why didn’t I just talk more??
In the end, when I was reunited with my friends who were scattered across various fraternities, I was really happy to have stories to tell and ultimately had a really fun weekend. The biggest stress now, is when and who do I friend on Facebook? Like WTF?!
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JAP Bum Chic
On Saturday night, I went out wearing jeans, sandals and a t-shirt (not even wedges, not even a silky-ish Urban shirt), an outfit not dressed up enough nor necessarily appropriate by any normal definition of going out outfits, but I am a SWUG and a SWUG is what I am. However, halfway through the night I deemed my bottom half too fancy and too uncomfortable, so what did I do? I ran my ass on home, changed into Juicy pants, a zip up and Uggs, grabbed a cheese stick, and went back out. First thing I realized is that no one notices nor cares what you are wearing, like, AT ALL. (This may also be in part due to my aforementioned SWUG-iness, thus making me invisible to the “I’m-a-guy-and-I’m-going-to-check-out-what-you-are-wearing” community. My response to that is…”I’m-too-old-for-you-you’re-18-you-should-have-seen-me-at-prom.”) The second thing I realized is that JAP Bum Chic is not only a style of dress, but a way of life that is beginning to transcend from my personal home life, to my class life to now my social life. What is JAP Bum Chic? Let me explain…
A year ago in Barcelona my friend and I were on the metro at 9:45 in the morning headed to our heinously early 9 am Spanish class. (Were we going to fail? At this point it was a surefire yes. “Hola” means hello and goodbye right?) We are both Jews and our third friend accompanying us was not. This will become relevant soon. Based on the fact that we woke up 25 minutes later than we were actually supposed to be in class, trying to look good for the international cuties we were about to see was not an option. We were also over halfway into abroad and beginning to come out of our hot junior girl cocoon and morph into our senior washed up butterfly. Ergo, we picked the go-to Jewish girl outfit: leggings or Juicys tucked into Uggs with a baggy off the shoulder graphic t-shirt and an American Apparel zip up. As the three of us stood on the metro, I looked at the people around me- a sea of denim outfits (doufits…a Catalonian staple) and other European high fashion ‘fits. Then there was us, thinking we looked cute in our American Apparel/Urban/Ugg/Juicy outfits, when in reality we just looked like slobs kebobs. I turned to my friends, and asked ever so earnestly, “Is JAP Bum Chic socially acceptable in Europe?” My Jewish friend, she looked at me and nodded “yes, yes definitely” ever so earnestly back, but my non-Jewish friend, well he roared with laughter. It was then that I realized non-Jews love a Jew who can make fun of herself, which is now the basis of my sense of humor and the foundation on which I have built this blog. It was also then that I hit a gold mine of clever phrasing, making JAP Bum Chic (or JBC) not only a “thing,” but a phenomenon.
JBC has reared its comfy head in a strong way in the life of senior girls.
The criteria for JAP Bum Chic is simple: comfort, accessibility, practicality, and the general sense of being extremely out of touch with reality (we think we look good, but we really, really don’t). It’s a style that one not only wears at home, but to class and even sometimes out at night. It’s because we, as senior girls, just don’t give a fuck. It’s because JAPs in general don’t give a fuck. We were raised on leggings, like little crack leggings babies, and now we are conditioned into thinking that they are trendy and stylish. Look at the world around you, Jewish girls. No one else is wearing leggings. We are conditioned into thinking that looking like a slightly put together bum is chic and that all we need to do to dress it up a little is replace the Uggs with combat boots. Leggings, oversized tanks and combat boots is the Jewish girl’s business casual. Don’t even get me started on sweaters. Black tie…not optional.
Why have JAPs adopted such a style though? Why isn’t it WASP Bum Chic? I think it comes down to convenience. We refuse to walk to class and we refuse to wear wedges. We try so hard to look like we’re not trying hard, that it’s actually really hard. Actually, I take that back. The younger generation of JBC tries so hard to look like they’re not trying hard, that it’s really hard. By the time you are my old washed up age, you literally just don’t try. We’re the generation of JAPs who don’t have to go to bed without supper if they don’t clean their room, because we can always finagle our moms into doing so if we promise to sit on our beds and talk to them while they fold our clothes. It’s truthfully come to the point where I only wear sports bras (and not because I’m always going to the gym). Who wants to fuck with a clasp these days? If it’s not stretchy or loose, it’s not going on this bod I can tell you that.
So my real question is this: Is it OK to JAP Bum Chic (yes, it’s a verb now) in the city post-grad? We already tarnished our good American name on the metros of BCN by inappropriately JAP Bum Chic-ing, so will the same be true of Murray Hill? Do girls wear jeans during the day in NYC?!?!?! I must know. Forget about the stress of not having a job lined up, not having any money and not being able to move out of my parents’ house in the foreseeable future. If I don’t find out the JAP Bum Chic etiquette of the post-grad girls living in the city, I won’t be able to go on. Seriously, must I revamp my wardrobe now and if so, does anyone know where I can get pajama jeans? Like WTF?!
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An Eggrolls and Tears Kinda Formal
Coming off my phinal phormal (yes, I just did that), I realized my sorority is split into two groups- the girls who spend formal by the questionably imitation crab meat crab cakes and the girls who don’t. Guess what group I fell in. I went into formal most excited about the fact that my friend Dana and I planned to distribute our Formal Packet out like Regina George did with Burn Book pages in Mean Girls. But instead of highlighting that girls in our sorority make out with hot dogs, this years Formal Packet more so highlighted how creepy we are by referencing boys who weren’t even at our formal in the Packet. Like a lot. And technology is a funny thing because within minutes of Packet distribution, photos of really inappropriate boys’ names in our Formal Packet were making their way onto frat list serves and being sent through the Greek life grapevine like an embarrassing game of broken telephone. But in this scenario the message couldn’t be blamed on a lost in translation situation (Oh, we didn’t really put your name in Formal Packet! You much have heard wrong!) because there was cold, hard evidence. Maybe we should have thought this through. Ok, let’s just pretend I didn’t write formal packet. It was written by the other girl in my sorority who writes a shameless blog and countless ridiculous list serves every day. (Like that cross promotion?)
I’m not one of those people who dies for formal. I feel like you just spend all this money without telling your parents (Hey dad, those Hilton Alexandria Virginia charges aren’t fraud!) for these boys you really don’t know. Unless you are taking a boyfriend. Yet another division of my sorority- the girls who bring boyfriends and the girls who don’t. Guess what group I fell in. But, it’s something you have to do, especially when you pen the Formal Packet and need to be there to defend yourself tell everyone to fuck off and get a sense of humor when they complain. I think there needs to be a post-formal Formal Packet. Remember When: Everyone who was in Formal Packet complained about it, and everyone who wasn’t complained more? Unsolved Mysteries: Is it socially appropriate to put CP celebs in your Formal Packet when they don’t even know who you are? I’m going to solve that one for you. No.
Since dated was like day ago, the time frame for formal stress was much shorter than usual. Let me spell out the past week of the average AEPhi girl’s life:
That pretty much sums it up, but would I be me if I didn’t go into further detail? Formal started off with me driving, which is always something to worry about because my car is like 400 years old, still has a car phone in it, literally goes onto two wheels every time I turn and definitely doesn’t have a GPS. I caravanned with friends, a source of a major anxiety for me because my car can’t go faster than 60. Literally. If you hit 61, everything starts to shake. But, we got to Alexandria, VA in one piece and I was able to let out a little sigh of relief. Because how embarrassing is it to get lost, yell at your friend sitting shot gun and start profusely sweating in fear of never making it home when you have two boys in the back seat? Really embarrassing. I’ll get to this later.
Formal typically starts off with a dinner at some nearby location, organized by someone way more organized than me. My sorority rolled in usual fashion, 60 deep. The only difference this time was that half of the members of our crew were males. (Usually its 60 ladies showing up to a social an hour late… AEPhi time!) My table managed to break not one, not two, but three glasses through the course of this 45-minute meal, forcing the super trendy, half-shaved head Alexandria waitress, who had probably never seen a Jew before and was therefore a tad anti-Semitic, to clean up after us. Redemption!
After dinner, it was time to get ready for formal. This to me is the strangest part of the whole process. Your date just saw you looking a hot mess (because you can only wear half makeup on the way to formal or it would ruin the full make up look that night), but you still get ready as if the image isn’t already shattered. And, I don’t know about you, but I think when a boy sees you actually putting on makeup, all hope in fooling them into thinking that you are a natural beaut is lost. When they see the first, how could they forget when they see the second?
The formal pregame always makes me feel like LC and Lo at their failed Black and White Hotel Party in season one of Laguna. Except that we’re not in high school using our parents’ money to support an unnecessary excuse to get drunk in a hotel with friends. (We are in college using our parents’ money to support an unnecessary excuse to get drunk in a hotel with friends.) It’s a time when you get to gather with your closest of friends and leave out the others. And when freshmen accidentally stumble into your senior pregame, well that’s just…awkward. Nonetheless the pregame is my second favorite part of formal. What’s the first, you ask??? Stay tuned!
Actual formal is by far my least favorite part of formal. What did I do at actual formal? I’m pretty sure I just chain-ate egg rolls while I watched people read Formal Packet, get over Formal Packet, and dance on Formal Packet with their dates. Not exactly sure what kind of reaction or reception I expected to have after people read it, but in my mind, just off the top of my head, it looked something like this scene from (500) Days of Summer:
It was not. The DJ sucked (apparently) and I was the senior girl who cried the entire way through because I don’t want to graduate. Like literally sobbed for hours. To really random, inappropriate people. My formal consisted of egg rolls and tears. And I was definitely the first person to go upstairs and change out of my back up formal attire into sweat pants, ready for my FAVORITE PART OF FORMAL!
So let me preface this by saying, I really don’t share beds well. I think it is an unnatural situation that society has forced into normal relationship behavior, but it is not something I believe it. It’s hot (like temp wise), awkward and uncomfortable. The whole time you are afraid/don’t want to move in fear of disturbing the other person. If I ever do have to share a bed, I often find myself lying awake in a plank position, staring and my phone and counting the minutes until it is socially appropriate to “wake up.” I can’t use my phone because then the other person would know I’m awake and then, like, do you have to talk? *Shudder*
Since I am never able to sleep at formal, I always am part of the after hours, can’t sleep crew that hangs out in the hallway in their pajamas and glasses. THIS is my favorite part of formal. This hallway possie is always really, really random and motley. A motley crew. Hey, that would be a great band name! (Crew? Creu?) This year I found myself coercing younger girls into staying up with me while we picked up straggling boys along the way. (I even offered a lost one room and board!) Conversation usually goes deep (you’re a little drunk still so you divulge your inner most feelings but also sober enough to articulate them). “What should I do after college? How am going to survive post-grad? What if I don’t get a job? You guys are so lucky! I miss Barcelona! I’m hungry! Where is the ice machine?!?” Ok so maybe this was less of a motley group of friends and more of a sounding board who I forced to listen to all my problems. (On the ice machine issue though, why do boys always feel the need to have ice in hotels? I feel like boys are always rabidly getting ice the second we get there, but for what? I don’t understand the overwhelming presence of ice machines in hotels, I just don’t!)
After hours of intimate bonding, my hallway friends wanted to go to sleep, so I had to also. Not a wink. But as soon as my other insomniac friends arose and texted me (I’m always the first morning text because I never, ever sleep..vampire??), I was up and at the buffet demanding a free breakfast! Nightcapping over a hotel breakfast is the best way to nightcap. I walked around the hotel shoeless in pajamas for about two hours before my car was ready to leave. I really didn’t know what to do with myself. Check out went smooth enough, until the concierge started telling my friend that sometimes Justin Bieber stays at the hotel. Not a joking matter, my friend, not a joking matter! The car ride home was stressful to say the least. We got lost twice for like 45 minutes, which resulted in me legit projectile sweating (whatever that means) and screaming at my best friend while two people I met less than 24 hours ago contemplated tucking and rolling out of the moving vehicle. And obviously we didn’t get lost in a neighborhood of even moderate affluence. It was like toothless kids pushing wheel-less bikes, tumbleweeds and hookers lining the streets waiting for my car to break down so they could pounce and steel the car phone. It’s called a cell phone people!
Eventually, we made it home and I b-lined to Bagel Place. One bagel with a side of bagel please! Formal is done and I feel like I have nothing else to live for. Except Greek Week, which starts…right now! So much for “taking a few nights off.” Like WTF?!
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FIFS
‘Twas the season of dateds, and all through CP
Greek life was scrambling, asking “Will you go with me?”
Regular hook ups are defined, others take friends,
And some send out listservs begging for set ups to lend.
Yes, it’s that time of the semester again. The high-anxiety two-week time frame of all the dateds, a precursor to whether or not you will be asked to an away weekend. Of course, all the sorority dateds are before the frats so it’s not like you know whether or not he is going to invite you to his Bar Mitzvah before you have to send out your invitations and make the final decision of whether or not it’s awkward to invite him. I mean dated. The more things change the more they stay the same. I’m still trying to decide whether or not it’s awkward to invite my kinda Hebrew school friend to my Bat Mitzvah.
To avoid awkwardness/potential embarrassment/a slew of lies related to some sort of mysterious commitment late on a Thursday night, I never like to risk it for the biscuit when it comes to asking dates. What I will risk it for is an actual biscuit. By this point in the game I feel like all my go-to friend dates have been so fucking exhausted by every boyfriendless girl in College Park because none of my guy friends are actually like unique or interesting guy friends, they are just every girl’s guy friends. Therefore, I oftentimes turn to the set up. It’s an opportunity to meet someone new, you don’t need to freak out when it doesn’t go well and you get the fun anxiety of the pre-dated First Impression Facebook Stalk with your friends. The FIFS.
There are a few different scenarios that can ensue when the FIFS occurs. It starts off with getting the set up, which at this over-the-hill stage in the game is a challenge in and of itself because when you’re an old news senior girl, it not only limits the people you can get set up with but it also definitely tightens the age range. Is it socially appropriate to get set up with a sophomore guy when you’re a senior girl? Probably not. I know every senior guy at this point and how uncomfortable is it to get set up with someone who I know and we know we know each other but he always re-introduces himself to me, yano? So that leaves juniors, 75% of which in this weird ass, overly privileged Greek life world are currently charging Ryanair flights to their parents Visas. Set ups are kinda hard to come by at this point, but when you are lucky enough to procure one, it’s straight to the computer.
When you can only see the one default pic and it’s, like, him and two friends laughing and kinda blurry it gets you questioning, is he/she not good looking enough to have a solo shot without friends distracting from his/her mediocre looks? You can’t help but hope that he’s banging because you’re currently in the fantasy stage of your preparation in which this set up becomes a full blow relationship to the point where you need to start your away weekend diet yesterday. But when the default doesn’t give you much info you need to cross reference with the cover photo.
When the set up has an obscure cover photo, it really has you pondering is he cool, artsy and trendy or is he a total fucking freak? Is he going to talk to me about anything other than house music because every single one of his cover photos is some sort of weird light show? Or like, what movie is this shot of Samuel L. Jackson from because I wanna be able to talk to him about his fav film on the bus without sounding like a total idiot. And Facebook doesn’t let you block your cover photos and in my opinion anyone with over six cover photos is way to Facebook active and needs to get a life. I have 10.
I’m not past turning the tables on myself. Not that I’m the go to set up in CP but I’ll analyze my FIFS. I would guess, at first glance, someone would think, “Overly filtered default, total red flag, with some sort of strange pink insulation in the back (something that only makes sense to people who go to Maryland), who is trying to be cool with that cover photo but really just shows she is the only idiot on Facebook who hasn’t changed anything in fear of job recruiters.”
I also looked at some of my friends. Kacy stuck out to me. Now, for anyone who went to Barcelona, this is a nostalgic reinvigoration of tastes buds for the best sandwich in the world that is Bo d Be. Yet, for anyone who didn’t study abroad in Barcelona, which is like most of the population, she just kinda looks like a fat ass.
Should we change our Facebook based on the off chance someone is looking us up for a date? Probably. Our FIFS is all people have to go by these days. Coming from a person who lives her life based off premature and superficial judgment of everyone around me, I have to say I have many a time been terrified by what comes up on my pre-dated stalk. And if this is how I feel while still in the fake world of “dating means we’ve hooked up three times” college, then what’s going to happen when I have to actually go on real dates in the real world? I’ll probably just retreat to the country with my 19 cats to avoid the whole situation. Like WTF?!
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