As study guides, graduation caps, and syllabuses come to an end, this time of year always sends a time capsule back in my mind. I look around, and while all the people graduating are different, the classes different, and the finals different, the same feeling is still in place around campus. Experiencing this feeling causes me to cuddle with my nostalgia. My mind rolls through the film to a simpler time, to my first year at UCF, when all my time was spent in my dorm, at the Marketplace, or in other dorms, at petty house parities with armature karaoke and too much GameCube.
But sometimes, if I let my mind wander long enough, if I roll the film back too much, I start to think of more intimate times in my freshmen year. Different beds with the same bed spread, since blue or grey is the only appropriate color for a male bedroom. Different bedrooms, with different posters and knick-knacks on the bed depending on interests and activities. Hands holding hands, kisses, movies and music in the background, breath changes, times of day, parties in the background, pillow talk, and all those memories. While the thoughts are brief, and the memories a little cloudy, I still have them. I still remember those times.
When I think of these times, I do not think about boyfriends or past relationships. I think back to what Cosmopolitan would call, those “FWBs.” The ones that set the unspoken rule before the first touch. They’d look me in the eye, brush the hair out of my face gently with one hand, and that hand would send the message: “This isn’t going anywhere.”
But I was young, naïve, and still trying to create depth where there was not any at that time. Like most of us girls in our freshmen year, I thought that if I fought hard enough, pushed our time together, and made some kind of romance out of it, they would change their minds. They would start to think about me as often as I thought about them. But once the rule is set, it cannot be broken. I remained exactly what I agreed to be. And while I bless this obstacle now, for it got me to who I am with today, it took a big toll on my self-image during a time when I was most fragile.
While it was fun in the beginning, I began to feel used. Like a support system sinking into the ground. My hookups went from being a liberating experience, to a tedious task. It went from fueling my confidence, to constantly coaxing theirs. I remember one specific person would always preach afterwards: “I normally never do this. I am never like this. I used to care so much about sex, I thought I was addicted, I normally never do this.” I wonder if he ever thought about how those words made me feel.
But after I started to feel used, after my self-image was slashed by all boys alike, I started to get angry. Profoundly angry. How dare these people, ones who did not even seem to care in the slightest, how dare they be able to make me feel this way. I am a woman, a strong, successful, woman who does not deserve this behavior, who does not deserve to feel like an outcast during a hookup. And while I hundred percent agree that all women, no matter who, can be as free as they want to be, I realized in my fit of rage that this was not for me. So I handled the ending the way they would: I ignored the sh*t out of them, left, and moved on.
And while overcoming this cycle of late night hang outs, early morning sex, and going through the day like strangers, was the most liberating moment for me, I am here to say that not all hookup experiences are like mine. Hookups can begin right, and end right. If I were respected, and treated like an equal in my freshmen year during that time, I probably would not even be writing this article right now.
So as finals pass, ceremonies begin, and campus becomes desolate, my nostalgia also does the same. Summer arrives and I embrace it with open arms, and the awkward moments of freshmen hookups dissolve with it. While I feel entirely over it, I will willingly admit my freshmen year was a learning experience. I learned about myself, as a woman, a warrior, and an adult. And now, I don’t take anything from any man who is not ready to take from me.