Rubi Mancilla

Making friends in college can be difficult, especially if you’re placed into a dorm where you and your roommate don’t automatically start braiding one another’s hair. Starting college can be even more frightening when you were one of the few people from your graduating class that made the decision to get as far away as possible from your hometown. Or at least as far as your Financial Aid Award Status allowed you to. I come from a small-ish town in Northern California that is known for growing strawberries, inventing Martinelli’s Apple Cider(oh yeah, that’s us) and weather that is constantly never nice enough to develop an even tan.

Now that you’re halfway through the semester, you should be able to see how many friends you’ve really made in college. Are most from your dorming residence? Sorority? How about people from your high school? No matter which situation applies to you, you can never have too many friends, especially when about 70% of the people you talk to freshmen year you won’t bother to make eye contact with your sophomore year.(I speak the truth!) For this article I chose to interview a friend of mine whose friend list is as big and diverse as UCR’s accepted applicants list. He’s an old friend from high school (one of the two people I still speak to from high school to be exact), is involved in various ways at UC San Diego and is an all around awesome person. Probably why he’s managed to make so many friends, definitely more than me! (What can I say, Tumblr is my social life).

Having a gaggle of guy friends can be both a privilege and punishment. Sure, it’s awesome to always have a date to events and someone to walk you home at night, but when they tell you things you don't really want to hear it can be a bit annoying. Why can't they for once not tell me what the true meaning of a guy taking a week to text me back really means? Maybe he did lose his cell phone. (Okay probably not.) Just last week I had a friend of mine tell me that my sexy wink looks like a nervous tic. I’ve had male friends compare my body type to a number two pencil and say my voice once resembled a door in much need of some WD-40. (Ok lie, that was a former boyfriend’s father, which made it that much more hurtful!) All in all though, I wouldn’t trade any of my hoodie wearing, belching and Mila Kunis worshipping friends for my very own army of skanks. (One can never reference Mean Girls too often.) Without my bros, how would I have ever discovered my love for the Black Keys, learned to never ever call a guy first after a date, and most of all how to jump chain link fence...in a dress!

Growing up I didn’t have many girl friends. I don’t know what aspect of my personality made me naturally bond more easily with boys, but whatever it was has stuck with me throughout the years. The majority of my closest and most trustworthy friends are guys, but with a large group of guy friends come opinions I don’t often want to hear. Male friends won’t compliment on your new blouse when they think it’s actually “hideous and looks like a paper shredder spit it out.” (So much for rocking the distressed look.) Guys for the most part keep it honest, as long as we’re speaking about strictly platonic relationships.

This article will reveal what 5 real college guys have to think about topics that they are often not confronted with. Let’s be honest, guys are not running to their local Target to pick up a fashion magazine to read all about the latest fall trends. You won’t find most guys fretting over their outfit before a party, or their outfit for most other occasions. The male species has it easy!! The goal of this article was to pull the blindfold off these 5 college guys and let them hear for the first time the amount of time and effort we girls put into such seemingly simple tasks. Also, I made it very clear to all 5 men to be brutally honest, rant if they felt it was necessary, but most of all, let their opinions flow freely.

Each segment of this article series will be broken into three categories. Fashion and beauty as well as love and relationships will always be discussed in some way. The third category will switch between a topic in the media that is trending and guy’s choice. Guy’s choice means one of the men interviewed recommended the topic be discussed because he felt women needed to be made aware of men’s opinions on the subject. No more telling women what they think we want to hear, read on to hear the sh*t real college guys have to say about back to school fashion, finding love at college parties and annoying girls on Facebook!! 

Being home for the summer caused me to realize something I had hoped to stuff in the back of my mind. No, not that I was stuck in this podunk town for an entire summer, friendless, boyfriendless and broke...I already knew that. I was forced to realize two weeks into my "vacation" that those awkward moments I experience all too often are what spark my ideas for my articles. While I knew that 99% of my articles are based on actual events, I didn't realize how dependent I was on my chaotic life in Riverside to come up with a half decent article. Since I'm stuck in this jail cell of a room watching Netflix all day (okay it’s by choice, spring quarter drained me of any will to live!), I don’t have much going on to say the least. With the lack of exciting stories to turn into articles I did what anyone would do, I began to troll online. Next thing I know I'm Facebook stalking myself!! Yes, that can happen, don't judge me! Being stranded in Santa Cruz County for an entire summer has led me to miss some of those embarrassing moments I had on campus. So without further ado, the awkward moments every Highlander has/will experience before graduation.