By now, your Facebook newsfeed is brimming with photos from proud parents of their smiling, happy children packing up and moving into their college freshmen dorms. And while my freshman year is many years behind me, I still remember that odd mixture of fear and excitement, of wariness in leaving my childhood home and my mother's arms and the joy of having a space of my own in a world about which my parents knew nothing.
But, the only person who knew less than my parents was me, and so I want to talk directly to you, college freshman. While you may have impressive technological sophistication, and while you may think that you know everything (or, a bit more than your parents), everyone has a blind spot, especially the average college freshman, and, more specifically, a freshman woman with daddy issues. Maybe your parents had a bad marriage, maybe your father was emotionally withholding, mentally abusive, or simply not around. Maybe your daddy loves his second family better, or maybe he loves his job better. It doesn't matter, because young lady, you're arriving on campus on a mission, and that mission is to be loved AT ANY COST!! If you are this woman, or if you know this woman, here are simple tips to get you safely started at college and safely out the other side.
DATING
There's nothing wrong with dating, but if you've got daddy issues you should avoid the urge to merge at least during the first half of your freshman year. Why? You'll want to focus all of your attention on your new love, even if it interferes with your studies and with your ability to make and develop friendships. Soon you'll be scheduling your meals, laundry, and classes around your 'boo as your insecurities lead you to believe that any time apart means an imminent break-up. You'll sport his fraternity sweatshirt in the dining hall and be his own personal cheerleader during intramural basketball games. Slow down, girl! Get to know yourself and enjoy your independence. And when you do start dating on campus, don't date someone who lives in your dorm as you might be too tempted to casually "bump into" them in a manner that law enforcement calls "stalking." Remember, smothering your boyfriend doesn't make your daddy love you.
BEWARE THE MALE PROFESSOR TRAP
Yep, he's an authority figure, and, sure, he looks devastating in front of the chalk board in your freshmen English seminar class, but he's too old for you and, oh, and he's your professor. It's tempting, though, to seek out the affections of an older man, a man who might be old enough to the father who didn't love you enough/at all, but he's not interested, so stop before you make a fool of yourself. So don't wear that low-cut, semi-sheer tank top to his class. Don't lean seductively over his desk in said top to ask him a burning question you have about "Beowulf" before that class starts. And don't go to his office during office hours in that tank top to get his profound thoughts on Olde English vs. modern English. At best, he'll laugh at you and send you on your way, at worst, he'll hook up with you and now both of your academic careers are in jeopardy. So, keep things professional, and maybe check and see if a female professor teaches that same class. And if that female professor has a male teaching assistant, then re-read this paragraph from the top. Remember, seducing a male authority figure doesn't make your daddy love you.
DRINKING
This is a particularly dicey subject. Unless you're at a dry campus, most socializing on a typical college campus involves a red Solo cup and a keg. I'm not naive enough to tell you to "just say no" and harp on the countless stories on binge-drinking and excessive partying on college campuses, it's just that I never really figured out why the drinking culture was so pervasive on campus. Most college kids don't get drunk because they like the taste of beer and liquor (although, Moscato wine is like liquid candy), do they? From what I've seen, it seems as if they get drunk so they can tell tall tales of their tipsy shenanigans. It's like their intoxication becomes the cover for bad behavior, and for a girl with daddy issues, booze becomes a part of her male-attention seeking arsenal. Look at me, I just pounded 8 beers in a row! Look at me, I just downed 4 vodka shots!! Look at me, I just hooked up with 3 random dudes but I'm too drunk to remember their names!!! Don't be that girl. Listen, the boys who cheered you on while you downed a fifth of rum are not your friends. If they were, they wouldn't let you do something that could cause you injury or death. And their attention doesn't make your daddy love you.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Friday, August 22, 2014
Monday, August 8, 2011
Confessions of the "Cool Black Friend"
This week, several of my friends are packing up the U-Hauls and minivans for the long, bittersweet journey to the college campuses where they will leave their children. There, these children will begin their own journeys, discovering the mysteries of laundry, and negotiating with a slightly slutty roommate about curbing certain "activities" when you're in the room. My freshman year of college was the beginning of a long journey for me. My school was a small southern college set on a charming parcel that looked like it had been plucked from a Hollywood movie. The center of campus life was a brick plaza area, in the middle of which was a fountain. Ringed around the courtyard were the campus center, the administrative building, and the three main dormitories, one of which would be my freshman home. As my parents and I finished our load-in of all of my things, we sat down on the front steps of the dorm. This was the first time they had ever said good-bye to one of their children, the first time that a child of theirs would be sleeping 100 miles from them, and they were this confusing mass of worried and proud. Would I eat right? Would I wake up in time for class? Would I know what to do if I got sick? Would I lock my doors? I laughed off their worries and I hugged them and I sent them on their way. But they were right to be worried.
In all of their checklists of things for me, the one thing we never talked about was the fact that my small, southern college, with a student body just under 1,100, was predominantly white and that I was one of only a dozen or so African-American students on campus. At first, it wasn't so strange, especially when you added in all of the other strangeness of college life, like eating strange food, living in a strange place, and learning strange new things. But soon I came to the uncomfortable realization that my blackness was strange to a lot of people.
First, there were the questions from the girls on my floor in the dorm - questions about the texture of my hair, and just what does a relaxer do?? Do black people tan?? Do you get sunburned?? Why do you put baby oil on your face after you shower?
Then came the questions from the boys, usually shouted drunkenly at me during fraternity parties - You know how to dance, right?? Why's your booty so round?? And other questions of a more prurient and insulting nature.
Even my professors got in on it, asking for my informed (black) opinion on the slave trade, inner city poverty, and Jim Crow.
I never knew how Black I was until I was in the company of so many white people! So much so that my Blackness became strange even to me.
I began to dissect myself, and to view myself from the perspective of my white classmates. Looking at yourself from the outside-in is as unnerving as it sounds, especially when you're a seventeen year old who's still trying to figure out who you are. I began to craft a new narrative for myself, one that would address my strangeness with a light-hearted flare. Like Cleavon Little in "Blazing Saddles", I would take the sting out of racism and, instead, make a joke. I learned a new vocabulary and new cultural references. I could spot the difference between Laura Ashley and a cheap knockoff at 20 paces and I knew the names of all of the members of R.E.M. I could tell Shannen Doharty from Tori Spelling and I knew that when the Lambda Chi boys put on Rob Base' "It Takes Two" that my job was to burn up the dance floors with the Running Man. I became the Cool Black Friend who didn't judge you when you needed an opinion on whether or not a joke was racist. I became the VIP at the fraternity house that, prior to my arrival on campus, had been sanctioned for holding mock slave auctions of their pledges and watermelon eating contests on their front lawn.
With every trip home, I measured just how alien my own skin felt to me, until I was no longer at ease at home or at school. I never felt so alone in all of my life. I had truly become untethered from myself, disembodied and strange. Looking back now, more than 20 years later, I'm not sure which surprises me more: how I survived it or why I endured it!
In my days since college, the Cool Black Friend has slowly faded into the background, but she's not totally out of my life. There are moments when I call upon her, like when someone addresses me as "girlfriend!" or attempts to cloak their racist sentiments about my Black President in partisan political speak. But I've found that my Cool Black Friend simply doesn't want to be bothered anymore and I can't blame her. It has been a long, bittersweet journey, but that's what life and growing up are. After twisting myself inside and out, I know who I am...I'm just saying.
In all of their checklists of things for me, the one thing we never talked about was the fact that my small, southern college, with a student body just under 1,100, was predominantly white and that I was one of only a dozen or so African-American students on campus. At first, it wasn't so strange, especially when you added in all of the other strangeness of college life, like eating strange food, living in a strange place, and learning strange new things. But soon I came to the uncomfortable realization that my blackness was strange to a lot of people.
First, there were the questions from the girls on my floor in the dorm - questions about the texture of my hair, and just what does a relaxer do?? Do black people tan?? Do you get sunburned?? Why do you put baby oil on your face after you shower?
Then came the questions from the boys, usually shouted drunkenly at me during fraternity parties - You know how to dance, right?? Why's your booty so round?? And other questions of a more prurient and insulting nature.
Even my professors got in on it, asking for my informed (black) opinion on the slave trade, inner city poverty, and Jim Crow.
I never knew how Black I was until I was in the company of so many white people! So much so that my Blackness became strange even to me.
I began to dissect myself, and to view myself from the perspective of my white classmates. Looking at yourself from the outside-in is as unnerving as it sounds, especially when you're a seventeen year old who's still trying to figure out who you are. I began to craft a new narrative for myself, one that would address my strangeness with a light-hearted flare. Like Cleavon Little in "Blazing Saddles", I would take the sting out of racism and, instead, make a joke. I learned a new vocabulary and new cultural references. I could spot the difference between Laura Ashley and a cheap knockoff at 20 paces and I knew the names of all of the members of R.E.M. I could tell Shannen Doharty from Tori Spelling and I knew that when the Lambda Chi boys put on Rob Base' "It Takes Two" that my job was to burn up the dance floors with the Running Man. I became the Cool Black Friend who didn't judge you when you needed an opinion on whether or not a joke was racist. I became the VIP at the fraternity house that, prior to my arrival on campus, had been sanctioned for holding mock slave auctions of their pledges and watermelon eating contests on their front lawn.
With every trip home, I measured just how alien my own skin felt to me, until I was no longer at ease at home or at school. I never felt so alone in all of my life. I had truly become untethered from myself, disembodied and strange. Looking back now, more than 20 years later, I'm not sure which surprises me more: how I survived it or why I endured it!
In my days since college, the Cool Black Friend has slowly faded into the background, but she's not totally out of my life. There are moments when I call upon her, like when someone addresses me as "girlfriend!" or attempts to cloak their racist sentiments about my Black President in partisan political speak. But I've found that my Cool Black Friend simply doesn't want to be bothered anymore and I can't blame her. It has been a long, bittersweet journey, but that's what life and growing up are. After twisting myself inside and out, I know who I am...I'm just saying.
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