Three years ago my friend Mike, who I haven’t spoken to in about a year (Mike if you’re reading this- what’s going on?), suggested that I start this blog. A person as opinionated as I am simply needs an outlet and for the past 1095 or so days this has been mine. Looking back I’m very proud of some of the things that I’ve written. Maybe it’s that nostalgic sense where people think that everything was better in the past, but I think my writing has gotten progressively worse as the years have gone on. I’ll occasionally re-read an earlier post and marvel at how much better and funnier it is compared to my most recent works. I can’t thank those of you that have consistently read this blog, commented, criticized, and suggested topics enough. Every once in a while I will get too caught up with work/life and neglect to post something for a few weeks and I’ll get a series of texts, emails, and gchat messages that say something to the effect of, “You’re blog game has been lacking big time of late.” These reminders that some of you are
desperate for interested in the content I provide help me to remember to take some time out of my days to sit back and reflect on sports, pop culture, society, etc. to make largely useless observations for you to enjoy.
It’s pretty remarkable that in the past three years I’ve accused one of my friends of
being gay, surmised as to which of my former roommates was going to
hit it big with me, written
three running diaries, ranked the best
movies,
comedies,
songs, and
sports moments of the 00’s, claimed that owning a dog is
a good precursor for parenthood, written about poop upwards of
16 times, updated the lyrics of Billy Joel’s
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”, changed the lyrics to “That’s Amore” to honor Knicks forward
Amare Stoudemire, written
two poems, written a
college manifesto, accurately assessed the
angst of twenty somethings, and created a 64 team tournament of
Seinfeld characters and
rock bands. All in all I’d say that it was time well spent.
At this point you’re probably thinking, “Is the Stan Man really about to retire from his blog (ticket to stardom)?” Well the answer is no. I still have a few good years left in me (I think). I just feel like this post needs a little build up.
For
as long as I can remember the past 4-5 years I’ve wanted to write a book. I have a pretty good idea in mind, but translating it to paper and expanding on my general premise is a task that I don’t know if I’m up to. Creating characters, writing descriptive paragraphs, constructing a narrative arc, building suspense, using dialogue to enhance the plot, etc. are all things that I don’t exactly know how to do. That’s why I have instead settled on writing a memoir about a topic that I’ve covered ad nauseam over the past three years on this blog; my senior year of college. I realize that my life in its totality to this point is not all that interesting, but I think that my escapades as a writer in my senior year of college are as worthy of a topic as I can cover. Now I’m sure that most of you will mock my efforts and just write this experiment off as me being a narcissistic egomaniac and I can’t really blame you for that. If I was in your shoes I’d probably do the same thing. I also think that some of you will be genuinely entertained (I hope) by what I’m about to present.
The following is my telling of the events that transpired in my senior year of college. The information, names, stories, events, etc. are as accurate as I remember them to be, but obviously I chose to put myself in the best light possible, so there may be some discrepancies. I realize that some of my loyal blog readers are central and/or minor characters in the tale that I’m about to begin to tell, but I hope that those of you who don’t know any of the characters (outside of me) will be able to follow along accordingly. If you are ever confused about something feel free to ask me about it. I obviously haven’t had anyone edit this, so any constructive criticism is welcome.
Here goes nothing:
That’s What He Said
Chapter 1
Maturity, like many words tossed around by adults, is largely subjective. It is not something that you suddenly wake up with one morning. It is a series of life experiences that influence your preparedness for the working world.
The maturation process is just that; a process. There is no class you can take. There is no “how to” book you can read. Actually you know what, there probably is one of those, but maturity is more self-taught than anything else.
Although the knowledge and skills needed to become mature in the eyes of the working world cannot be found in textbooks, it is in the arena of higher education that they are learned. While high school is capable of helping teens build a good foundation for their transition into adulthood, college is really the take off point. Liberal Arts schools can boast all they want about their wide based curriculums, but they pale in comparison to the life lessons that kids learn when they aren’t in class. Seriously, when’s the last time that something you learned in your freshman year philosophy class actually helped you in the real world? Academics obviously play a role in the grooming process, but learning the fundamentals for success in life is not contingent upon one’s GPA.
Learning how to manage one’s time is a significant task for college students. Their ability to balance academics with the constant desire to be partying speaks volumes about both their work ethic and their character. No longer are they subjected to the rules of their parents’ house. No longer are they forced to go to school. No longer do they have to obey a curfew. College is a time for kids to let loose, and they do, but in the process they learn things about themselves that they had never previously known.
Perhaps the most important life lesson that is ascertained in college is the ability to relate to others. Being able to adapt to different audiences and situations is a skill that cannot be underestimated. Successfully tailoring one’s speech and actions to different audiences in a variety of environments is much more difficult than it sounds. Mastering this skill is critical for success as a communicator.
Ironically, I was able to conquer this task in my senior year of college by engaging in what others might refer to as a series of reckless immaturity.
My illustrious college career began in the fall of 2004. I, a glasses wearing 5’11 suburban white kid with moderate athleticism (like I said- best light possible), had chosen to attend Fairfield University, a small Jesuit school in Fairfield, Connecticut, mainly because I didn’t get into Notre Dame or Boston College. Fairfield is located on the southern tier of Connecticut and is just 45 miles from New York City. The town of Fairfield is in one of the richest counties (aptly named Fairfield County) in the country. Much of this wealth can be attributed to the nearby towns of Greenwich, Westport, and Darien, but Fairfield is oftentimes thrown into the “ritzy” category as well. Much of the population commutes to NYC and is very successful (or at least used to be) in the financial industry. This leaves a plethora of SUV driving housewives that roam around town with a heightened sense of entitlement.
Fairfield mainly draws kids from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The hotbeds during my tenure were Long Island, northern New Jersey, and eastern Massachusetts. Basically what I’m saying is that there were a lot of rich kids that did coke because their parents didn’t love them, a decent amount of Italian kids with blowouts that wore black wife beaters and gold chains, and countless bandwagon female Patriot and Red Sox fans.
I was drawn to Fairfield because my parents grew up in the area, which meant that much of my extended family was just minutes away in case something went terribly wrong or if I wanted a home cooked meal. It should be noted that, much to my dismay, my extended family was not a part of this abundantly affluent culture. My mother grew up on the mean streets of Bridgeport, the closest city. Ask any Fairfield student where he or she would least want to be alone at night and I guarantee they say Bridgeport. My dad grew up in Fairfield, but in a small house with six siblings. In fact, he did not even have his own room. He shared “the boy’s room” with his two younger brothers. I don’t know how, but his four sisters shared “the girl’s room” on the other side of the upstairs.
My decision to go to Fairfield was largely influenced by my cousin Tim. He grew up in Milford, CT (about 20 minutes away from Fairfield) and attended Fairfield Prep, which is on Fairfield University’s campus and is also the same high school that my dad went to. As kids I saw Tim for an average of about 10 days a year. Our families vacationed together in New Hampshire every July and one summer Tim showed up about 6 inches taller than he was the year before. Ever since the growth spurt he has worked tirelessly to fill out the rest of his 6'4 frame. Luckily though, unlike most tall white kids, Tim is neither goofy nor uncoordinated. His athleticism actually allowed him to walk onto Fairfield’s varsity basketball team (Division I) our freshman year.
Naturally Tim and I chose to be roommates as opposed to rolling the dice on a random. Finally free from the bounds of our parents, we settled into our new home, Jogues Hall-Room 225. Although they would tell you that we didn’t leave our room for the first few weeks of school, it didn’t take long for Tim and I to bond with the random assortment of guys that Fairfield decided to clump together on our floor. It’s really amazing how proximity establishes bonds between people and to the same token how distance rips them apart. Our new found friends gave us new competition in video games, new wing men, and a new perspective on the types of kids from places all along the eastern seaboard.
We, like your typical group of college freshmen, did everything in packs. This was due to the fact that no one had the self confidence to do anything alone. This fear of feeling uncomfortable was perhaps most evident when it came to venturing off to the cafeteria. It was virtually unheard of to eat alone, so if no one else wanted to eat, you simply didn’t go. In that respect, the only difference between the second floor Jogues crew and the lacrosse team was that we didn’t wear matching gear that would announce our presence wherever we went.
On our first official day Fairfield gave us all sorts of things in an attempt to get us acclimated with daily campus life as quickly as possible. We were avalanched by informational packets that contained phone numbers, email addresses, and maps. Along with the assortment of things we never used was a particular item that was viewed countless times during the first few weeks of school: the freshman facebook.
In the summer Fairfield asked all incoming freshmen to send in a picture of themselves and to answer a short questionnaire. The questionnaire had your standard questions (What’s your name? Where are you from?) as well as a list of hobbies/interests from which you were supposed to pick two. Most kids just sent their high school senior picture and selected common interests like basketball and baseball (I think those were what I selected). Other kids must have thought it was still 1996 because they selected things like roller skating and playing frisbee.
The freshman facebook was great because you were able to scout out all of the females in your grade before meeting them. You got their name, their picture, where they were from, and the two interests that they selected. After meticulously scanning through the booklet, every heterosexual guy had a handful of girls that they coveted. In fact, one of the kids that lived next door to Tim and I and his other neighbors, the self proclaimed “Three Musketeers,” went one by one and selected their top five girls that the other two agreed not to pursue.
The “Three Musketeers” were only one of the many different factions within our large group of friends. You had the kids in the corner triple from Westchester, NY, the kids that did drugs on the other side of the hall, a handful of lacrosse players, a group of kids that we nicknamed “The B-team” because they were not nearly as cool as us, and, of course, there was Tim and I.
We knew each other fairly well going in, but living together made us much closer. Everyone we came across in the first few weeks of school was surprised as to how well we knew each other and how well we got along. I don’t know if that was because we didn’t tell people that we were cousins right off the bat or if they just forget. In fact, even to this day, about once every few months someone who knows us both fairly well will become aware of this family connection and be shocked that they never knew. We got along so well during our freshman year that even our family members were surprised. Our Aunt would literally call and say, “Hey Dan, it’s Aunt Eileen. Have you and Tim fought yet?” I still haven’t figured out why our family expected the worst.
When you live with someone, you start to learn each other’s tendencies. You know their likes and dislikes, you know their moods, and (especially if you’re a guy) you learn their schedule before you learn your own.
One of the many things at Fairfield that Tim and I loved was a particular column in the weekly student run newspaper. The newspaper was called
The Mirror, which is a terrible way of signifying that the articles printed are a reflection of the student body as a whole. It should be noted that Fairfield annually ranks in the top five of “Most Homogenous Student Bodies” in all of those college review books. The column that we were excited to read every week, titled “He Said/She Said,” was a showcase showdown
1 of the sexes. Each week the male and female columnists wrote on the same topic and had their words printed right next to their pictures. The “She Said” portion didn’t interest us much, but we loved the “He Said” column because of its suggestive nature. Week after week notions of being an alpha male were mixed with stereotypes about both college and girls and more often than not, hilarity ensued. The male that wrote the column our freshmen year was a pseudo celebrity in our eyes. We looked up to him like women look up to Oprah. Unfortunately we never got the chance to meet him, but he set the bar for what was to come.
Our sophomore year at the U was a blur. It is probably the year of college that I remember the least from. While it is usually social events and situations that stand out in my mind, my sophomore year memories involve a few classes that I took with Tim. Actually more like, a few classes that Tim took with me. Tim, although tall, good looking, and athletic, was not the best student out there. Somehow, someway he always managed to find his way into classes that I was already registered to take.
In our fall semester, Tim and I had a class together called Argument & Advocacy, which is just liberal arts code for Public Speaking. Argument & Advocacy turned out to be one of my favorite classes of all time because it truly brought a random collection of 30 kids together. If you were walking around campus and saw someone from that class, it was a guaranteed hello, which is something that never happened in any other class. On the first day we interviewed another student in the class and then had to introduce them to the rest of the room. A classic ice breaker activity. The kid that I interviewed was some meat head Irish Catholic from the outskirts of Boston. Just like anyone else that lives within an hour of Boston, he claimed that it only took him 10 minutes on the T to get to Fenway Park. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve heard that. He turned out to be a nice kid who earned the distinction of being the “He Said” writer when I was a junior. He had his moments, but in my opinion, focused too much of his writing on dumb stories about his friends getting drunk and punching holes in walls.
During the spring semester of my sophomore year, I took a class called Interpersonal Communication because it was a prerequisite for my Communications major. Evidently Communications is a pretty girly major, because there were 35 people in the class and only four, including me, had a rattlesnake between their legs. The three others were Tim, of course, another kid in our grade that ended up being a very good friend of mine, and a senior who just so happened to write the “He Said” column that year.
He fit the writer stereotype pretty well. He was a heavy set kid with a full beard and he wore a lot of flannel shirts. You could tell that he wasn’t a part of the “in” crowd and that he had probably never kissed a girl, but he offered a unique perspective on male/female dynamics in his column every week. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he did some damage with the written word. I still remember to this day that in his Valentine’s Day column, which is a much anticipated article every year, he wrote, “Girl, I’d rather hold a live grenade than your hand in public.” To me, this line accurately depicted the common male opinion on public displays of affection and at the same time took a shot at some of the gaudy couples of our fine institution. Because the class was called Interpersonal Communication, our teacher was fascinated with his gender driven role with the student newspaper. About once every two weeks she would ask him about his column, but he only said whatever was necessary to stay on her good side. Even so, I was always impressed with his ability to tap into the mind of the average Fairfield male without actually being anything remotely close to that himself.
As junior year progressed, knowing the “He Said” from Argument & Advocacy class seemed to wane his celebrity status for both Tim and I, but it also gave us a chance to share our thoughts with him personally. He was a sturdy 5'10 and in a way resembled a refrigerator. In his picture that appeared next to his column every week, he wore a Boston Red Sox jersey and crossed his arms in typical Boston smug fashion. You almost didn’t even need to read what he wrote. That picture said it all. He lifted weights at the gym, drank 30 beers a night, loved the Sahx, instigated fights, and had an anger problem. Shocker.
During the spring semester you could tell that his role with
The Mirror was holding him back. Like Tim, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. In talking to him it seemed as if he approached his “He Said” role as just another assignment that he had to get done each week. It didn’t help that the “She Said” that year was a porker. Perhaps if she was hot, his being forced to interact with her week in and week out would have piqued his interest a bit more. Late in the year he lost touch with his readership by writing about senior only events and taking weeks off altogether. He just wanted to enjoy his last few months as a college student and for that I cannot blame him at all.
In April of 2007,
The Mirror starting running ads asking for kids to submit an application to be the He Said/She Said the following year. Tim and I both expressed our desire to have someone that was funny and engaging enough to be our He Said because we wanted every part of our senior year to be awesome. I was fresh off taking a News Writing course that opened my eyes to one of my many gifts, so I decided to apply for the position myself. The application process was simple enough.
The Mirror asked for potential candidates to send in a column of no more than 400 words that answered the prompt, “The best and worst parts about being a male/female freshman”.
I sat down in front of my computer and stared at a blank Microsoft Word document and tried to re-capture some of the commonalities that most kids go through as freshmen. I’ve come to learn that in all writing, the first sentence is always the toughest. It took a few minutes, but once I got my first few thoughts on the screen the rest just flowed. Naturally I shared my application with Tim before I sent it in. He offered a few minor suggestions (a.k.a. he dumbed it down a little bit) and with his approval, I anxiously waited for a response from
The Mirror.
My application read:
The Best and Worst Parts about being a Male Freshman
The best part about being a freshman guy is that you are in...colllllegggge. No parents! We do what we want. It’s like a $40,000 summer camp. Living in co-ed dorms is like getting a key to the girls locker room. Female hormones are flowing like the sweat from every guy’s armpits on their walk from Campion to the Dolan School of Business (unless they are Italians who shave their chests and refuse to wear sleeves) A lot of these girls come into freshmen year still clinging to their loser high school boyfriends and it just gives guys that much more of a challenge. My over/under for most girls to cheat is the second weekend of the year. There’s nothing better than being a homewrecker.
College is a new beginning, a clean slate. No longer are you Mitch, the kid who farted in 9th grade music class2, or Pat, the one beer queer who threw up on his date after the prom. That is of course if you aren’t one of the 3409870 kids from Long Island, New Jersey, or Massachusetts who went to high school with 20 kids in the freshmen class. You become Mitch from Westchester and Pat, the one beer queer from Philly who threw up the first night of school in the middle of the quad and got taken to the health center.
Another great part about being a freshman guy is of course the facebook and I do not mean the website. Sure the access to the Fairfield network is sweet because you can be a creep before anybody knows you. Also, you can walk onto campus in September with 464 friends at Fairfield while being in every single “Fairfield Class of 20xx” group there is. The facebook I am talking about is the tangible freshman facebook with everyone’s picture and mini-bio included. (Diana Diaz from Boca Raton, Fl who liked waterskiing and people why did you have to get kicked out freshman year for dealing drugs?) You and your new found friends on your floor, because let’s be honest you only hang out with the guys on your floor freshman year, can scan through the book and draft “dibs” on your favorite females before they put on the freshmen 15. But this isn’t your regular Madden fantasy draft that every guy thinks they are good at because there is no guarantee that your draftee is going to show up for training camp in your room late on Friday night.
The worst part about being a male freshman? Is that a serious question?
After a few weeks of waiting, I was finally told by a girl that I knew who worked for
The Mirror, that I was in fact the He Said for my senior year.
1- I can’t guarantee that that will be my last Price is Right reference
2- I actually know a kid named Mitch who farted in 8th grade music class.
I won’t tell you how much of this tale I have already written, but my plan is to unveil at least one chapter per month in order to force me to keep writing.
