One Hundred Days Until Graduation…and why who you become in college is determined by a salad bar

So when I was seventeen I made a poor decision: I chose a college that was smaller than my high school. At the time it was the safe and comfortable thing to do and all of the perks like small class sizes, getting to know everyone on campus, and making a home in a place where everyone knows your name outweighed the negatives such as everyone knowing every bit of drama that goes on, having the same monotone professor semester after semester, and everyone from the drama club to the lacrosse team knowing who made out with Joe Schmo on Saturday night. Basically, my school is a high school.
Name one thing more “high school” than the cafeteria. Seriously, the social food chain that exists in every suburban high school is just elevated to the college level. With only one dining hall to fill our constantly expanding stomachs, the only place where the whole school comes together is in the cafeteria. Coincidentally, the cafeteria was where I learned my first big lesson at this university: do not sit on the right side of the cafe. Split only by a salad bar, the right and left sides of the cafe represent the biggest form of social hierarchy at this school. The left side for athletes and members of Greek life, and the right side for all the NARPs (non-athletic regular people), theater majors, science majors, and professors. Not to offend anybody, I have friends on both sides of the great salad divide, but if you are a left-sider, you would so much as surrender your plate of cheesy fries to the conveyor belt and grab an apple to-go rather than have to sit at a table on the other side.
I am fully convinced that it’s those who sit on the right side that enjoy college more than us left-siders. They are the ones up socializing in dorm rooms till four am, climbing trees, playing campus wide Humans vs. Zombies and Ultimate Frisbee for sport. But it is the collection of athletes and Greeks who you find at open bar on Thursdays with their fake ID, at karaoke nights, and that very same group of people at any house party you’ve been to. This being said, the annual celebration of the hundred days till graduation mark is the one time that both sides of the ridiculously divided groups socialize together, without the display of iceberg lettuce and humus standing between.
My bestie and I showed up at a time we thought was acceptable to realize we had stepped into a right-side dominant party. The pub on campus with its two-dollar drinks should be the predominant watering hole for students of age, but every pub night the bar stools stood empty; upon entering the 100 days till graduation event, I understood why. Inside, standing around tables were video game experts, bio-majors, theater buffs, less-popular Greeks, and the random wasted athlete all having the time of their lives. Sitting there just the two of us, we listed all the reasons why we should leave without even having one drink, but the obligation we felt to experience this milestone tied us to our chairs. Here, we realized that we didn’t know a fraction of the people that go to our small little school and that other than our close-knit circles of friends the people of our class were near strangers. There we were at one of the biggest bonding moments of our college careers talking to no one but ourselves.
Eventually our fellow left-siders came filing in, taped out every keg behind the bar, and filled up all the karaoke spots, but still the only thing tethering us to the event was the promise of a Champagne toast. At this point, my entire suite had joined us and we were already one beer and one performance of Bon Jove’s “Living on a Prayer” into the night, but I was still put off by the awkwardness of the event. For once in my life however, I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling the awkward itch. There were faces I recognized of course but with freshman orientation being so long ago, old roommates having grown into completely knew people, and such serious social divides breaking the room into its own theoretical cafeteria, I didn’t see how we’d ever make it through senior weekend in a couple of months.
Low and behold, it was that Champagne toast that brought us all together. Every NARP and athlete holding their little plastic cup with a milliliter of free “Champagne” in the air as a representative of the class of 2014 (who was ironically not a member of our class at all) got kicked out of the pub trying to give a speech, and then a new representative of the class of 2014 acknowledged the awkwardness of us all being there together but expressed his gratitude that we were all there, because what would college be without all these different types of people sharing common experiences? As that cheep Champagne ran down my throat I realized that this was it, we had 99 more days to laugh with friends, to see these recognizable faces, to belong to a side of the cafeteria before there was no cafeteria to keep us safe. The truth is, we didn’t all belong in this room together, to some this was their big night out all semester, to others it was an inconvenience, and to others it was a pit stop on the way to a bigger party, but that’s what made us all belong there in the end. College is a time to figure out where we belong, but just one hundred days short of knowing exactly where that is, we all came together to see how far we’ve grown and how much we need to fit into these last days.
Personally, I realized that I barely knew any faces, and I could have written this whole blurb about the small infinity of time that I sat on a stool next to “that girl”, staring at the ceiling, staring at the near strangers in the room, and having a bit of an anxiety attack but for some reason I couldn’t write that. Not after I took the clarifying shot of bubbly and realized that I could instead stop this from happening in a few months and improve myself a little before senior weekend, when an event like this is just one check-mark on a full itinerary of class bonding.
I love the way everyone experienced the night as well. I was in my work clothes and casually sipped on two beers, my bestie in her sweats sober, my roommate let the cheep drinks get the best of her, others drunk out of their minds, and even more drinking in public for one of their first times. The poetry about this was that we all ended up at the same place around one AM: buying pizza and mozzarella sticks from the creepy guys upstairs in the Grill, either as a nightly tradition, a cover for a drug order, as hangover preventatives, or as an excuse to break our diets. Maybe we didn’t need this celebration to bring our class together, we clearly all bond over food, but it was kind of nice to ignore the great salad divide for one evening, and pretty darn scary that this will all be over in a measurable number of days…

this isn’t book club…

The club is a frightening place for any new comer.  The night starts with doing ones hair and makeup till it looks like magazine-cover worthy and picking out just the right outfit.  If you are lucky, you pull out your new LBD and your go-to pumps and call it a day. If you are our socially awkward girl however, nothing comes this easy.  First there is the struggle between looking hot enough to take the attention off of your big nose and slightly slumped shoulders, but not slutty enough that your dance moves look more like a naked preteen caught in the locker-room when all her clothes have gone missing. Shoes, any girl’s saving grace, pose yet another problem for girls like us.  Hoarding heels like an extreme couponer hoards deodorant are difficult to dance in never mind the fact that they make tall girls like us look like a giraffe among zebras.  The cow-boy boot is the next best bet, but can rarely be pulled off in the club-atmosphere; such a clunky shoe spells broken toes for any guy that dares come within a three foot radius.  Flats, while simple enough, give no support to our arches or our not-so-toned rear ends and should be avoided at all costs.  The last great hopes are a nice leather sandal or boot depending on the season. Never hot nor on trend, these options are safe, full-proof and the awkward girls only alternative.  Lastly, accessories are the awkward girl’s worst nightmare. We can’t wear those big hoops with a straight face, rings are sure to knock a girls tooth out and land you in a back alley fight, and necklaces are a health hazard bound to either choke you or be ripped off your own neck during an excited arm movement.  You’re dressed and looking fine, (not, “damn she’s fine,” but more of an “eh, she’s fine,” kind of fine which is better than a “she’s dressed so slutty she’s going to get a fine,” fine) but keep glancing longingly at the beautiful shoes and accessories with tags in your closet. So far it’s a stressful night and it hasn’t even hit eight o’clock.

If you think getting dressed takes all the thought of the SAT then brace yourself for picture time.  Is it just me or is mastering the “silly picture” a skill that takes extreme practice? In all my twenty years I have yet to take a good one.  Yeah I can throw in a decent confused face every now and then but who am I kidding, those aren’t intentional.  When I try to be funny I tend to do this sort of dinosaur, bear-my-teeth, neck-vein-poppy-outy disaster of a face that I think must look real adorable but never fails to scare the pants off of me when I upload them to Facebook.  How the rest of the world looks so Vogue in their wacky pictures is beyond me.  Even the cop-out Cosmo-Girl smile pictures end up doubling the size of my arms, getting the wrong angle of my nose, red, squinty eyes, and a tummy.  When I was away at Girl Scout camp was the rest of the population in modeling seminars?? And then there are the pictures with the shots.  I can’t document that, I will be educating America’s youth someday!! I never see anyone framing chipped nail polish hands holding brightly colored shot glasses filled with various shades of brown colored liquids so what’s the point?

Let’s get this straight: awkward does not mean uncool.  The socially inept friend in your circle is probably the funniest one of the bunch, she just usually doesn’t feel comfortable to open her mouth.  Instead, you will find her going through the motions, opening up little by little but never fully emerging.  Ask her to do a shot? She’ll do a shot.  Ask her to do another and she will take it with a comment attached.  One more and she will even make a joke.  But she is still reserved.  Notice her going through the motions following the Simon in the room, but never doing as she feels.  She is unsure but follows directions well. Get her comfortable and little birdie will flutter her wings, but it takes a one-on-one with a close friend to get her to fly.  Instead, you have to soak in the flutter, and appreciate the effort she gives.

Socially awkward does, however, mean one is clueless of the rules.  Everything about a night out is as unfamiliar a territory as the Louisiana once was before the Purchase.  They will question everything, and doubt your answers.  Everything from boarding a bus to knocking on a dorm window will appear as scandalous and foreign as using fake names and identities at a girl’s weekend in Vegas would be.  With their own name, and their own timid identities, once our socially awkward girls leave the safety of their dorm room they will have full blinders on: constantly surveying their surroundings.

I should pause a minute here and remind you that there are two different kinds of socially awkward girls.  No I didn’t just make this up, it’s the truth! First we have the dreaded girls who think they are hot stuff but don’t understand the simplest of social cues such as personal space, language, volume never differentiating between megaphone level in the library or mouse whispers in a crowded room, or scratching, smelling, itching, nose-running, hair-flicking annoyance in public.  Instead, these girls think that they blend in with everyone else and that everyone picks their wedgies in the middle of class every now and then.  These girls wonder why they don’t get introduced to miss so-and-so’s hot guy friend at the table or invited to walk to the dining hall together with friends or why the treadmill next to her at the gym remains vacant the longest.  We call this the oblivious awkwardian.  These are the women who can be taught etiquette and can change their ways with a couple of conscious mantras.

But for every two oblivious awkwardians, there are genuine awkwardians.  These are the girls who, much to their dismay, have Rhinorrhia:  the medical condition of giving a constant runny nose, or acne despite three medicine cabinets full of medication, gels, birth control, and a healthy diet.  These are the girls whose hair looks good because that is something they can control or who know to keep lotion on her knees and elbows or who keeps her nails as perfect as the salon.  Our genuine awkwardians are aware of their awkwardness but can do little about it: they blush if they so much as look at a boy, God bless them if one even looks at them.  These girls usually find something to compensate for their social graces such as sports, art, or education because they know the sad truth that change isn’t in the cards for them. They are always the best friend of the most popular girl at school, but never that popular girl. This friend she is so associated with is her bodyguard, her social bridge, and her impossible to live without. People may question said friend but friend know this isn’t an unusual relationship: the anemone needs the fish just as much as the clown fish needs the anemone. People who know the real story realize that Marlin and Dory are equals, you see where the rest of the world thinks the quiet girl follows the popular girl around, but when it’s just the two of them, it’s us awkward girls who lead the way.

I should also mention intentional awkwardian. These girls are awkward-cute. They like cats, they climb trees, they fall and just happen to land in the big arms of a lacrosse player, and they make it look so adorable. Be warned ladies, this is all a rouse; each of these actions and preferences are intentionally planned. I don’t mean to make this sound like a bad thing, if it’s working for them who am I to blame, but this book isn’t for you ladies I apologize. What it comes down to is us wanting to walk this earth like a princess and escape the seaweed that’s always tripping us up and you are a two-legged princess who wants to be a mermaid and will find a prince by being a mermaid because you know when to trip over seaweed when the time is right and not to cut yourself on a rusty anchor when no one but a shark is around. I can’t help you, but I am confident you know enough to help yourself.

So maybe you are an oblivious awkwardian and this book is going to shed some light on behaviors you maybe didn’t know you did, or maybe you are have an awkward friend you are trying to understand, but I have a hunch that the majority of you are like me and are a genuine awkwardian and will find comfort in the fact that you are not alone.

Alone however, is how I felt when visiting my friend at her college sophomore year. With the getting-ready ritual documented and complete I was informed that the party we were going to had been canceled and that we would be going to an eighteen and over club instead. Rule number three of the Awkward Girl Handbook According to Me states that you must have a plan and stick to a plan. Changes must be made and approved at least thirty-six hours in advance or bad things will happen, and I’m sure we have all been in a situation like this where bad things have, indeed, happened.

So there we were in a free bus singing the latest pop song about being a wild and free empowered young lady and headed into town. According to my handbook I was trying to follow the backup panic plan: remember where friend lives, collect as many phone numbers of her friends as I can and leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t follow all of the plan: I could not bring my dog with me to sit on my lap and calm me down, I could not borrow a crustacean’s shell and curl up inside of it, I could not bring my blankie or oversized sweatshirt, and I could not convince my mother to come with me. So there I was, in a foreign, unplanned, social setting with only have my arsenal of survival items but luckily with me was my best friend. As much as I love her, the two of us should have never left the Shire by ourselves, even Frodo and Samwise needed a fellowship and I was not up for meeting any Gollum-like companions on this journey. Smeagle is exactly who we found however. At first the club was enough for me to handle, the small crowd and good music was almost enough to distract me from the electric green wristband I had to wear that totally clashed with my outfit. Said friend and I were dancing and having a good time, (by good I mean me hunching over and feeling a head taller than everyone else and swaying back and forth pretending to dance and go unnoticed at the same time, and she not having a care in the world).

For awhile I thought I would survive, but like most of you know, that feeling never lasts as long as you’d like, as well I’m sure you know how the night is never as short as you’d like. When my friend started to feel a little lonely she grabbed what I can only describe to you as a swamp creature of a boy and started dancing with him. Dancing with him like you wouldn’t show her mother if she were your worst enemy. She misunderstood my head shaking as me not knowing what to do rather than the “he’s creepy” warning sign that it was and after too long of me trying to tell her to stop, I gave up.

The benches across from the bar looked like a safe and vacant place to sit, and they were until I was almost knocked over by a couple whose make-out session wouldn’t make it passed the perviest of online filters. Dumbfounded, I headed to the bar and just sat there pondering how I got there and if that bread trail I pretended to leave would help me get home alone. But my sitting there turned into my staring there. The thoughts I had of a cute guy offering to order me a drink or asking me why I was all alone faded when I lost sight of my friend, lost control of my body, and lost my voice completely. I couldn’t even have ordered water or tapped my toe to the music if I wanted to. It was a complete social coma. I can only describe the situation on choking on life. There was just too much too fast and I couldn’t handle it all on my own. I had no way of getting back to a dorm room I had no key too, and no clue where my friend was. This social paralysis was really new to me: I had woken up paralyzed from the knees down one day when I was little and sick, and even that wasn’t as scary. To describe the choking, it was like I was on a playground merry-go-round and life was flying by around me and I couldn’t move. The air was too thick, everything was moving so fast, and I was supposed to be enjoying it but really I wanted to get my feet on the ground and run all the way home to my mommy.

After what felt like a decade, a slight glimpse of my friend broke the paralysis and unfroze me from my chair. I ran over to her, she told me she was afraid of the guy she was with and that she wanted me to make sure we stayed together the rest of the night. For a second I thought the night could be salvaged, but that was before after just telling me she was afraid of the creature, they found each other and started kissing again. Now I was getting angry and I sought out the most rancid couch I have ever seen in my life and decided to sit in the corner until it was time to leave.

Now ladies, I intentionally forgot to mention the last item in my Emergency Aid kit that I did have on me: a book. Okay, maybe not a book but I nice discrete kindle, at that may be nerdy but it could have been worse. I could have had my hard-bound 738 page Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on me or something. Instead I sat there, in that disgusting couch reading the mushy and not so satisfying words of Nicholas Sparks, failing at life, and enjoying a book in the completely wrong kind of club.

The fight that ensued between me and said friend is not even worth the mention, she upset with me that I didn’t guide her away from the troll and I upset with her that she left me dying in a barstool, but the complete and utter fail at being normal is. I guess we have all been in situations similar: when you jump into the pool without testing the water in early June, when you’re too anxious to get your jeans out of the drier that you burn your belly from the metal button when putting them on. It’s inevitable that you would choke on a twelve foot hoagie if you tried to eat it in one breathe, so I don’t know why I would try to taste all of life on one night without taking even a nibble first, no wonder I choked!      So what if my preferred club discussed the latest Jodi Picoult novel, some people prefer a nine-iron to NYC’s meat-packing district and I don’t hear anyone calling them out on it! The silver lining is that in all those embarrassing pictures from getting ready that night, I didn’t have that stupid green paper bracelet on!