College Love

Relationships during your university years dominate the social scene. Constantly discussed, consistently languished over and always sought after, often, they are used as a measuring stick of social aptitude.

However, at no other point in your life are they so complicated. Of course, being married, juggling children, a profession and a mortgage is difficult, but how many times do married people wake up naked in a stranger's bed with only 15 minutes to go before the commencement of a midterm exam?

Hopefully, never.

Factor in the fickleness of college students, and you have one messy situation that gives you headaches without having to consume 20 beers. You always are wondering, "Did she like me, or was she just drunk/trying to get over some other guy/trying to complete a bet with a friend/or just bored with her life in general? Do I call her, text her, wait to bump into her, ask a mutual friend about her?" Further, your all-important reputation is on the line. If you crash and burn with one girl, that is going to get around. Relationships become all the more difficult because most college students have "hooked up" before they even go on a date. After such a powerful fist encounter with someone, the pressure is heightened, and it can make conversation difficult, let alone building a relationship.

But, despite all the roadblocks, some do seriously date in college. I myself have been seeing a girl for nearly a year now. But, we struggled in the beginning, as many couples do, because of a stark contrast in thinking between males and females. Now, I can only hypothesize on girl's opinions, formed by what a select few have told me, and theorize on what I have witnessed by many of my male friends coupled with what I experienced at the beginning of my own relationship. But a recent couple quandary of a girl I've known and stayed friends with since freshman year got me thinking about it again.

My friend, LK, recently celebrated a one-year anniversary with her boyfriend. They, like me, are both living in State College Town and working in Metropolis near by. However, she shared these two quotes from her boyfriend, Brett, with me from their last fight.

"Many guys wouldn't put up with your shit," and "Most guys would have walked out much earlier."

Now, LK has had a tough year. Her father passed away shortly after Christmas, and her uncle passed a month ago. So, insensitivity notwithstanding, Brett has been forced to shoulder an emotional load that many 21-year old males would refuse. But it was a terrible mistake to make that point well-known to LK.

They have since talked, and are trying to work it out. Brett is a good guy, and alcohol, some unresolved relationship issues and frustration got the best of him, but he knows he made a mistake with his tongue. This quandary got me thinking about something my girlfriend and I fought about a lot when we first began dating. It can be summed up like this: A guy sees a relationship as a sacrifice, a girl sees it as a goal. Let me explain with a very common example that I have experienced before.

It's a Thursday night, and I don't have class in the morning, so I decide to head out to the bars with the boys. Audrey, the girlfriend, has some homework to finish up and class in the morning, so she decides to stay in and I promise to stop by on the way home from the bar. Well, last call is 1:30 a.m., there's a huge line at the late night drunk stop, and my phone is blowing up. I have to decide; cut my night short to go see Audrey, or stay out goofing off? I am ashamed to say that more often than not, I chose the latter, and am fortunate she didn't dump my ass.

This is the part where all the girls nod their heads in unison, all of whom have had to dance this slow dance. They give the guy some freedom, and he takes it as a "I'll see you when I see you." Girls, a few thoughts on this:

(A) Don't put up with this bullshit. It will drive you bat shit nuts for months on end. If he likes you, he should be willing to commit to you, and if he isn't, he probably never will. If you want a commitment, you cannot tolerate him breaking promises and leave you hanging for his friends.

(B) However, there is some reasoning behind this behavior. Lets dig deeper.
i. He's an idiot and doesn't know any better.
ii. He's not that into you and is waiting for something better to come along (a fun two first reasons, no?)
iii. He's a pussy and can't stand the ribbing he takes from his friends for spending so much time with you.
iv. He doesn't trust you. He is afraid that you will not make the commitment along with him. He's fighting you for control of the relationship because he wants to know if you are willing to fight back.

(C) The other thing to consider is that guys view all of their relationships much differently than girls do. A guy's friends are niche fillers. I have friends I like to drink with, different friends I play basketball with, and then a bunch of guys I like hanging out with. I really don't have a "best friend," as girls would define it. Yes, some guys I am closer with, and I share ideas and goals with, but for the most part they are interchangeable. Guys do not value a friend the way girls do, and, a lot of guys see the girl they are involved with as a niche filler as well. Their niche is, at the shallowest end, sexual gratification, all the way up the spectrum to valued friend to share an interest with. But when the girl begins to demand more, pushing her beyond the limits of her niche defined by the guy, conflict can start, and from there, either a relationship will blossom or they will go their separate ways. But, this all brings me to my point.

Guys and girls, you are on totally different wavelengths here. When Audrey asked me to come over after the bar, she thought she was compromising; he can go out to the bar with his friends, and then when the bar closes, he can come see me as I finish my homework. I didn't see it that way. I saw it as, "Yea, you can hang out with your friends until I'm not busy with stuff anymore. Then report to my office immediately." To me, she was playing with me, dangling the cheese and then pulling it away. Because I didn't trust her, I wanted to control the relationship. I was afraid of becoming "whipped" and be forced to be at her beck and call, lest she throw a shit fit and then I had a fight on my hands.

Which brings me back to LK and Brett. Brett has trust issues with LK, because she has cheated on him in the past. He believes he has soldiered on, sacrificing his time, energy and sanity to support LK through many a miserable night when grief has overcome her. Perhaps he is selfish, and he is certainly an ass for saying it out loud. But, when you enter a relationship with someone, you have to go in with this knowledge, and you have to be willing to work around it, because otherwise, you will be constantly fighting about who sacrifices more for whom.

A relationship will not work if the people in it believe they are sacrificing for one another; it only works when the two people are in the relationship because their desire is to make that person happy, and the fact that they do in turn makes them happy. I'm reminded of the Friends episode (yes, I watch Friends) where Joey tells Phoebe that there is no such thing as a good deed, because people only do something good because it gives them joy in return, which is selfish. Phoebe spends the entire episode trying to find a good deed that doesn't give her any joy, eventually donating money to PBS, which she hates. But that's the idea of a successful relationship; you have to WANT to make the other person happy, and when successful, you are happy because the person you love is happy. And, if this isn't the case, you might need to analyze the value of the relationship. And with that, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from someone who understood the importance of affecting others' lives.

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." -Jackie Robinson

Some additional reading

Two travel blogs I have enjoyed reading while rotting in my office. I have wanted to backpack through Europe since taking a 10 day trip to Ireland following my senior year of high school, so I read travel blogs judiciously. Both of the authors are from the University of Maryland, College Park; guess there is something in the water there, or perhaps Hemmingway's ghost just bartends. Any way, they can be found at:

http://brandonmoffitt.blogspot.com/
http://ryanrickenbach.com/

Hope you enjoy!

Also, an interesting article on males just out of college. It outlines the trend of 20 something males attempting to extend their adolescence into their post-grad years. I found it very interesting. You can find the article here.

Drinking with Little Sis

So, after my failure on Thursday night, I was eager to make up for lost time. I walk past the chapter house on my way to my apartment after work, and sure enough, four brothers are out on the front yard playing some late afternoon cornhole and sucking down the nectar of Fraternities far and wide, Natty Light.

The afternoon proceeds, innocently enough, meandering between various drinking games while we try to decide what to do for the night. After about an hour, I get a call from Little Sis telling me she's in town for a friend's party.

"Hey, you guys wanna crash my sister's party?" I ask no on in particular.

Much to my chagrin and lest I ever forget, my friends constantly remind me my sister possesses many of the qualities superficial males value in their women.

"You mean your hot sister?"

"Yes, asshole, her friend is having a party a couple blocks away, wanna go?"

My sister went to my high school's sister school, and dates a guy who was two years behind me. I needed an extra class my junior year, and elected to take Latin I, so I know a fair amount of guys in my sister's class, including the one throwing the party. I also thought it would be funny to unleash my bored fraternity brothers on a party of rising sophomores who attend stuffy, private East Coast Colleges. I was right

In order to come, we had to BYOB. No problem. We grab the end of a 30 and a handle of cheap vodka and set off. Once we arrive, we survey the scene and see this party is in need of a little pick me up. My fraternity proudly boasts of a game "in which everyone wins" called sprodka. Basically, you take the largest mug you have, fill it half way w/ vodka, half with sprite and ice cubes, stand in a circle, and chug until you are about to throw up before giving way to next in the circle. Play to music, finish before the song does, refill and repeat. Everyone wins because no one remains sober.

So, we get there and ask for some sprite and the largest mug they have. Unfortunately, only two cans of Sprite and a cup that could have been no more than 20 oz was produced. Undeterred, I head into the kitchen only to find the biggest domestic blender I've ever seen. Time to get our Sprodka on.

After rounding up the terrified 18-year olds who want no part of the increasingly drunk strangers that have interrupted their conversations about Introductory Economics at Ivy League College X, Y and Z, we begin. The first game goes off with no hiccups. The second, not so successful.

Since we were out of Sprite but had plenty of Coke, we had to adjust our liquor choice. No problem, there is a handle of Captain Morgan sitting on the table. As I greedily poor the rum into the absurdly-sized blender, a girl looks on in horror.

"Uh, I think that's mine," as I dump $25 worth of rum into the blender.

"Well, just make sure to drink extra this time," I say hastily.

The music starts, I go to town and pass it off. Same with the next guy. The third guy, however, is my friend, Justin. One thing every man has is an ego. Justin is no exception, particularly when it comes to drinking. With only a little prodding, you can talk him into things his otherwise capable mind would talk him out of.

"Drink you stupid bitch!" someone shouts as Justin begins.

"You won't finish that J, you won't!" another taunts him as Justin takes down more and more of the mixture.

And more of it.

And more of it.

And now all of it.

The retard just drank about 10 shots of rum in 3 minutes. This will be funny.

Flash forward 30 minutes. Justin and I are at the beer pong table. He is expectedly hammered. I am expectedly humored. He has yet to pass on an opportunity to dance with a girl that comes by the table, or make fun of her boyfriend as he runs to her rescue 30 seconds later.

Hilarity and inappropriateness ensued, but to ensure I am not considered a misogynist, I will refrain from printing Justin's Neanderthal-esque attempts to get laid.

We fondly refer to Justin as The Mutant, and it couldn't be further from the truth. He is a mess when drunk. Has an insult for everyone, always ready to fight, little to no disregard for other's happiness or personal space, simply a few fancy vocabulary words above retardation. But he also is incapable of backing away from an insult.

He finally succeeds in making a cup, and it just so happens to be the last one, winning the game for us. But, his drunk ass spent the entire game talking shit to the kids across the table, despite the Captain Morgan coursing through his veins telling him there were six of them.

"You leaned on that last one, asshole, it doesn't count," Cry-baby loser bitch says after Justin hits the last cup. There is nothing I hate worse than someone who has gotten worked, by me I might add, waiting the whole game to bitch about leaning over the table.

"Wha?" is all that Justin can muscle as the ball is thrown back across the table and strikes him in the face, mid-obnoxious celebratory dance.

"Your elbow was across the table, your last shot doesn't count," cry-baby repeats.

The Mutant is not a fan of that charge.

"Fuck you, you dumb bitch. I just shit all over you and now you got beef?" he exclaims, not even close to the truth since his drunk ass hasn't made a cup all night, but hardly the point.

"House rules, shoot over." The bitch doesn't understand The Mutant's potential.

"The house rules say the little gay bitches get fucked up the ass, so take Heath Ledger with you, Jake Gyllenhaal, and get the fuck off my table." The Mutant, while unable to walk or operate machinery when drunk, has tremendous wit.

The situation quickly deteriorated from then on out, until I was able to distract The Mutant with a shiny trinket and the Gay Bitch got tucked into bed.

I quickly tired of Justin taking 20 minutes to shoot the ball and miss by 30 feet, so I exited in the middle of the game to smoke a drunk cigarette. Just an aside, don't let anyone coax you into drunk smoking. Weed maybe, but never cigs.

The Mutant wanders out, and, having dealt with his bullshit all night, I decide to have some fun with him.

"Hey, Jake Gyllenhaal is over there taking a piss on that tree."

"Whaaaa?!?! Fucccckkkkk that queer cowboy," he screams as he brandishes a nearby basketball and stumbles off the porch.

"Hey you stupid queer fuck, where's your horse? You think because you fucked some guy outside in a movie, you can just take your post-Sodomy piss anywhere you fucking feel like it?" as he chucks the ball at the guy.

Unfortunately, he hit the guy square in the ass. Even more unfortunate, it wasn't the same guy from beer pong. Someone else, and someone bigger.

This triggers no response other than instant infuriation from the Assaulted. The Mutant might not feel the blows reigning down on him now, but he probably will in the morning. Since I began the fracas by antagonizing The Mutant, I'll have to bail him out.

I am aided by some other bystanders that know the Assaulted. We pull him off The Mutant and separate the two. It doesn't stop his mouth, however.

"This muthafucka has an unfair advantage," he screams in the pisser's general direction. "He has a long and storied career on top of guys."

The pisser, now recognizing the The Mutant's intoxication level, simply shakes his head.

Justin is not to be deterred.

"I made sure to aim for his ass, because I figured it was already sore."

The pisser, at this point, has had enough, and returns to the party.

"You shoulda kept hitting me, you stupid shit, you could have ended up in the joint and gotten some strange out of the night." Why did I provoke the beast?

The Mutant's destruction is not finished. He makes sure to punch every sign on our five block walk back to the chapter house, interjecting each punch with various threats on the pisser and assurances he could have beat his ass.

"What the fuck, [Carter], I could have fucked that guy up!" as he punches a sign. "Why did you pull me off him?"

"Because you were on your back and getting the shit kicked out of your drunk ass, you stupid fuck," I said, quickly losing patience.

"Yea, well he was a candied-ass bitch and I would have fucked his shit up," while throwing another hay maker at an unsuspecting stop sign.

I finally get The Mutant back to the house, where he is now screaming in pain as he suspects he broke his hand taking out his furor on every sign we passed. I throw his ass through the front door and begin the 10 minute walk home.

As I reach my apartment, my cell phone rings.

"[Carter], I could have fucked that guy's shit up!"

"Justin, go to bed you stupid fuck, you are lucky he didn't kill you."

"No dude, you don't understand, I would have owned that little bitch. I was about to..."

CLICK. That's all the drunk shit talk I can take for one day. I pack the bowl, flick on the TV, and pass out. I find out from Lil' Sis the next day The Mutant did not make a good impression.

"Thanks for the invite last night. Did we cause too much trouble?"

"Your friends creeped everyone out. They were so drunk and tried to fight everyone. And someone told me you were making people chug out of a blender?"

"It was all they had."

"Well, they had fun laughing at you all, but I don't think you'll be invited back anytime soon."

Well, we burned a bridge but spiced up an otherwise dull summer night. Justified? Probably not, particularly all the fighting. But I learned a valuable lesson; my friends are dumb enough as it is, I do not need to bring gasoline to a five-alarm fire. And, cheap laughs are hardly worth it. I put my friend in danger simply to spice up my night, and now he has a damaged hand. It's fun to drink, it's fun to party, but to avoid a world of problems, use moderation. I can't promise I always will, but it's always a good idea to have the consequences of your actions in the back of your mind to avoid trouble. Until next time

A Night of Hypocrisy

I write and edit this whole thing myself, so as a disclaimer, I will let it be known I am an awful speller. Keep that in mind.

Any way, on to my tale. I am currently spending my summer living in an apartment I rent during the school year that is adjacent to my college's campus while I work nearby. My roommates are home for the summer, so I have the place to myself, but several members of my fraternity are also still in town, and we decided to head to the bar. Thursday night's are always packed. The newest bar in town is also the cheapest, and Thursday night's are a binge drinker's fantasy; $.25 drafts and rails all night.

The bar, which will be known as "Sluggers", is a huge sports bar. It boasts a front bar outfitted much like a sports one, with tables and flat-screen TVs tuned to ESPN. In the back is another bar, complete with a DJ and a dance floor. But, it also has an upstairs, which runs the length of both downstairs bars, with a bar that runs the entire depth of the building and a dance floor to match. Needless to say, this place can hold a lot of people. Combine that shear size with cutthroat prices, and you have an absolute shit show.

Now, as a not yet 21-year old, I am not quite old enough to enter the establishment. However, I have been outfitted since my early college days with identification that indicates otherwise. On this night, however, brandishing the counterfeit proved trickier. Perhaps because in recent weeks it has been flooded with awkward pre-pubescent teens, Sluggers deemed this a college night. No problem , except as a stupid freshman I feared if I ever lost the id, and it had my name on it, perhaps I would be tracked down and arrested for having a fake id. So, naively, I spelled my last name wrong on it, so it does not match my student id. Most of the time, this is met with an aww shucks look from me, a roll of the eyes from the roided up freak checking ids, and a pass through the doorway. But on this night, the bar was charging $5 for students of my university, and $10 for everyone else. My interest in the evening was saving money, and I did not want to deal with the possible bullshit and have to pay the full $10 to get in. So, I decided, hey, lets be honest, show them my real id which has a name that matches my student id, I'll give the standard aww shucks, and be let in for $5.

Not so fast, my friend.

"You aren't old enough," Barry Bonds-light says.

"What are you talking about?" an incredulous Carter retorts.

"You have to be 21 to come in."

"But those girls have braces and pig tails and you let them in," I say with a chuckle as I walk towards the front door.

Bouncer didn't like that.

"Yo, asshole, you aren't 21, you aren't getting in."

"So, if I came in with an ID from R. Kelly's recording studio that says I was 21 and had a developing set of tits, you'd let me in, but instead, since I won't be 21 for two weeks and admitted that to you, it's illegal for you to let me in the building?"

Now I've angered the beast.

"All right, fuck you, get the fuck out, look us up in two weeks."

"I hope you are still open in two weeks, but it's not a definite since you are letting in girls to sell thin mints while they drink," I retort over my shoulder as I retreat from the bar.

The world's fascination with the rules is astounding. This guy was unwilling to let me, at 20 years and 49 weeks, into a bar I have been to probably 50 times because I admitted it to him. But, had I lied, I would not have had a problem. The idea that a lie overrules the law seems silly, because the law is in place to protect the teenagers I taunted the bouncer for allowing through the doors.

Just a thought of the day; rules are there for a reason, but they don't always make sense. Ask some questions. Form your own opinion. And lie when you go to the bar.

Welcome to Press On!

Many believe the world changed with the invention of the printing press. Ideas now could be shared between parts of the world that otherwise would be ignorant of one another due to the limiting transportation means of the time. The education revolution had begun.

Blogging will have a similar effect on the world. It allows anyone to express themselves, to say what they believe, to say what they think, and publish it to the world. The world over can receive the thoughts and panders of your day, and it can all be done for free.

I have joined an inundated community of hopeful writers, disgruntled employees, bored housewives, pensive professionals and guys just too lazy or unwilling to handwrite their ideas in a good ol' fashioned journal. So, for you to stumble across mine, which is one of millions, I thank you. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you come back.

Let me begin by telling you a bit about myself. I am a soon to be 21-year old rising senior at a state university on the East Coast. I have elected to keep my name and location unknown because I neither have the time nor the money to battle possible reputation or legal retribution from people I write about, and hey, lets face it, if I don't piss someone off, I'm not doing a very good job. I am a journalism student, and am expected to graduate in May 2009. I am also a member of a greek organization on the university's campus.

Once again, welcome! I can be reached by e-mail at press.on09@gmail.com.