Flashback from sophomore fall: I am slung over the shoulder of the president of the fraternity I had my heart set on joining. He is blacked out at 3:30 a.m. on a Friday, hoisting my relatively small body overhead, while whispering in my ear: "Matthew Ritger ... You are almost the biggest badass ... Too bad you're just a faggot."
Flashback from junior winter: I am leaving Collis, but realize I've forgotten something and make a quick turnaround. As I do, I catch two girls standing at the Blitz terminal, one saying to the other: "That's the guy who --"
With my back no longer turned, she cuts herself short. I walk by, laughing a laugh that belies the pang of humiliation hitting somewhere behind my stomach.
Flashback from freshmen fall: I arrive at Dartmouth, 100-percent openly gay for the first time in my life. I switch my Facebook profile to "Interested in Men." I treat lovers like disposable cameras through which to view new worlds. Every three weeks I get a new boyfriend. One has a motorcycle. He picks me up in the Choates and I hop on behind him, a crowd of my floormates literally waving me off into the sunset.
Backtrack to the Collis girls: To my surprise, I had never (to my sober knowledge) even seen either of these trolls before. And while gossip at Dartmouth no longer surprises me, months after that moment, I still find myself wondering, wishing I had questioned those wretched girls: I am that guy who ... what?
That guy who was acting like a lunatic on Saturday night? Who stomps around campus with hair only slightly larger than his ego? Who occasionally makes fun of himself and other idiotic aspects of our school in The Dartmouth? Who stumbled into your English final late and, you're certain, crushing Ativan into his coffee? Who hit rush like a bird into a plate-glass window? Who is openly gay?
Backtrack to the Broseidon (or devolve to his level) and it's clear who I am: Matthew Ritger, almost badass, just a faggot.
Dartmouth defines you, one way or another. We draw lines based on affiliation, questioned sexualities, sanities or rush catastrophes, and then watch with glee as our classmates become legendary versions of their labels. You know what I mean: Quiet girl goes KDE, drinks Kool-Aid, turns neon. Boy-next-door becomes bro, gets Parkhursted. Previously serious girl joins Kappa, finds leggings in-grown into her skin.
Backtrack to freshman fall: Since my own wide-eyed introduction to the "gayborhood," as I once so nauseatingly heard it referred to, I've come to realize how miserable it can be to be defined by your sexuality at Dartmouth. Then again, with the right attitude (a numbness of the mind), using one's ability to get kissed as a proxy for actual power and rampaging around campus can be undeniably fun. Either way, the worst aspect is the way the gay community here often seems to divide itself -- along ludicrous lines, each contingency convinced it is misperceived. Visible activists are on one side, those who'd rather just blend in on the other, each in an "I'm not acting holier than thou" reverse arms-race.
On the one hand, an openly gay member of a fraternity or sorority (the more they blend in the better, right?) seems like a step towards inclusion for the whole GLBTQ circus. You know, Obama-like transcendence of minority status, or whatever. But on the other hand, taking part in a single-sex Greek house is enabling a false image of progress for a backwards system, which will only be actually inclusive when it's entirely coed. So, though the choice was not mine (trust me, I'd have been happy to blend in to oblivion) I'm glad I've found myself outside the system, poster boy for nothing but my own meandering opinions.
Fast forward to my point: Being gay at Dartmouth often means existing outside the easy definitions -- or within them, however uneasily. The truth is, when, as a result of my sexuality, I didn't join a frat, Dartmouth and I began to divorce one another. I will always have the friendships I've built and all I've learned, but eventually Dartmouth will be where I went to college -- not a defining aspect of my life, as it is for so many of our alumni and parents.
On this, if nothing else, I would like to come down clearly: the sexes civilize one another. Until we abolish Greek life or transform all Greek houses into coed societies, the defining social life of Dartmouth will continue to be nothing but bittersweet flashbacks and backtracks to adolescent behavior.
