A Freshman Perspective: The Scene

o there I was, working my moves on a dance floor at the semiformal dance held recently here at Trinity. The vibe was groovin' and I tried to match it with my Travolta-like dance steps. I had the company of a nice little lady with me, who too played her part in our escapade on the dance floor. The music was smooth, the distance between us was getting smaller, and pretty soon we became a little bit too intertwined for anyone who wasn't exactly a fan of public displays of affection. Within minutes, however, my little partner was hit by some higher realization to which I was ignorant of at the time, and she ran away from the dance floor, leaving me stranding and confused, as well as awfully rejected. As I saw her figure become smaller and smaller as she ran off the dance floor and up towards her dorm, I stood by myself in this swarm of bodies and thought to myself: "What's going on here?"

Now, before I go any further, let me explain where I came from before I arrived at Trinity College this fall. It's fairly simple, actually. For the past six years, I had attended all-boys schools. It was a parental decision, and one that had mixed results. While I made friends for life at these schools, I also missed out on a lot, namely girls. So coming to Trinity was an entirely new experience. While there had always been social contact with women during high school, never was I involved in a situation where you lived with them, went to school with them, and ate daily with them. It was perhaps the thing I looked most forward to when I arrived at Trinity this past September. Girls, girls, girls, and all the nice little things that come with the package. In a word, I was thrilled.

So when I got here, I was taken aback by many things, as was to be expected by such a newcomer at this coed thing. First off, I was shocked daily by the caliber of women here. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I had visited colleges during high school and had spent weekends at others, but I had never encountered a student body so, well, beautiful. During the first week, getting to class was quite a difficult task, for it seemed as if every minute I had to stop dead in my tracks to get over the shock of the near-model who I had just passed. But this I couldn't complain about. I liked it, as did many of my male compatriots.

The next thing that I noticed was that virtually everyone had boyfriends from home. And guys had girlfriends as well. It seemed like everybody was hanging on to their high school sweethearts, even though they were just thrust into supposedly the best four years of their life. And to make things even worse, it was all the beautiful women whom I was in love with. Now, I don't mean to assert that by simply coming to college, it is an excuse to rid yourself of someone you love, simply because he/she is from high school, and to go on a sexual rampage (although in some cases, that might be nice). However, it did seem awkward that many of these people were in fact going into these years of bliss with a closed mind, one that may find them regretful come the end of their four years here. But, to each their own, I guess. I just found it weird.

When I came to Trinity, I was also amazed at how many women I became friends with. I stress the word "friends." Within the first couple of days, a few women became buddies with my circle of guy friends. By the end of the week, however, we were all sitting in my room discussing the not-uncommon topic of whether or not we would ever hook up with each other. We all came to the general consensus that if we ever did we would die laughing in the process because of our friendship. Fine, fine. No big deal. But, the problem was, I was becoming friends with these lovely little ladies who on any given night I'd be more than willing to share my saliva with. But, it was to no avail. The damage was done. So, as the second week progressed, I made sure I became friends with few women, at least very few women who I found attractive, and even those who I didn't, because you never know when the beer goggles can kick in. Which brings us to my next point.

Drunken hookups. At this school, it is perhaps synonymous for hookups themselves. Within the first two weeks, I had already found myself involved in three drunken hookups, and everybody else had a tally going as well. Of course, we all know that alcohol makes "things" easier --- that's given. But it's scary how many people rely on alcohol to get to "that point," where we can all be Joe Smooth with those beautiful people whom we'd otherwise would never talk to. And then what happens next is, well, inevitable, especially if the other person also has been sucking back on grandpa's old cough syrup (apologies to Dumb & Dumber). And that's all fine and well --- until the next morning. Yes, the morning after. That dreaded period of awkwardness and indecision. You see them the next day and don't know what to say. Did she want to do it? Is she ashamed of it? Would she do it again? If not, does she hate me? Did she tell her friends? Does she even remember? The questions float above our hungover heads like anvils. It got to the point where I had to make a conscious effort to visit my partner from the night before as soon as possible the next morning to make sure that there were no hard feelings, and to make sure that even if we didn't want to pursue each other during a sober state of mind, we were still friends nonetheless. It was awkward but it was better than being enemies for the next four years because of our timidness to approach each other.

With all of these hookups, drunk or not, I quickly found out the disadvantage of attending a small school: Word gets around. If you fart in Jones Dormitory, somebody at North Campus will smell it before you can even excuse yourself. This was true especially for a friend of mine. He had hooked up with numerous people his first week here and had been enjoying the college life as best he could. In fact, he had a rule: He refused to go to bed until he had locked lips (at the very least) with somebody. And as far as I could tell, he was very well-rested. However, the days past, as did the women, and one night while introducing himself to ladies at the local bar, one girl replied, "Oh, I know you. You're the male pimp around here." Suffice it to say, that he hasn't been sleeping as much as he used to. I, too, was faced with this, though not to this extent. One night, while trying to seduce this sweet little lady, she immediately knew my intentions and said, "Patrick, I can't hook up with you. You're such a flirt." And the opinion is held by many others, although I personally don't see it. I'm not a flirt, I'm just 100% enthralled by this coed experience, and am making up for lost time in high school---not even sexually, necessarily. But, nonetheless, word gets around. Everyone has their clique, and each member of that clique has another clique with which they can associate. And people in those cliques have friends in other cliques, and so on. It gets around, and there's nothing you can do about it. My brother, who attends a small school in North Carolina, warned me before hand about attending a small school, for these very reasons. While I couldn't be happier here at Trinity, I can see where he was coming from. So if Trinity's such a place where if you fart, everybody can smell it, we'll all just have to hold it in once in a while.

So as I stood there alone on the dance floor, I took in this whole scene, this whole freshman, Trinity scene. I didn't know what to make of it. I was having a ball here at Trinity, but the "scene" seemed a little weird. But, what can you do? It's all part of a higher plan, I guess. And as I got pushed around by those couples around me who wanted my space, I became determined not to be stranded on the dance floor ever again, but not this dance floor, specifically. The much bigger "dance floor": The scene here at Trinity.