Since the theme of the Mirror this week is "Censor yourself!" I would like to tell you about the day I decided to stop doing exactly that.
The day I fell out of love with Dartmouth College was a beautiful day. It was August, the summer before senior year, and I had come up to visit some friends who were spending the season in Hanover. That afternoon I went for a long, long run; everything was very, very green; I swam in the cold Connecticut and I went sky-diving out of love.
We went to the farmer's market to collect a feast: Eggplants and heirloom tomatoes, and sunflowers for the eyes. I sat down to that happy table of two friends and one enemy this being Dartmouth, there's always got to be somebody at the table whose relationship you've epically homewrecked a Kappa, a KDE and a Psi U.
"Guys," I said, "Today on my run I realized something." I paused. "I don't love Dartmouth."
The table of pleasantries was suddenly overturned; I found myself with my mouth duck-taped shut and my hands tied behind my back, being dragged out back to a dumpster where I was then left to rot, my struggles sufficiently muffled
Though that was the reception I fully expected, what I found was in fact solidarity; near sodality. Both women confessed that there's so much they dislike about this school that they had both considered transferring. This came as a complete shock to me. The Psi U was like, "whatever." This did not come as a shock to me.
At the risk of being tied to the stake at the bonfire next Fall, I would like to venture forth one more heresy: The people who love it the most here are those who are, on some fundamental level, losers. Either they're not very pretty, not very bright, or not very wealthy; but thanks to how small this pond is and the Greek house they're in, they've become our version of powerful.
And who wouldn't love that? I will give you big fish credit for not kidding yourself. Most of you seem to realize that you love this pond precisely for your own size relative to its dimensions. And yes, that it makes you look fat.
In that dinner conversation we (mostly affiliated, need I remind you) came swiftly to the conclusion that everything we do not love about Dartmouth stems directly from the Greek system. Thus began the thinking that lead to October, to that lighter-fluid-soaked column, in which I said, "die" and struck a match.
Yes, one of the many advantages to not being in love with Dartmouth is that, unblinded, you can see this place more clearly. Another advantage is that you don't feel the same pressure to censor yourself. Another is that you don't risk breaking your heart when it's time to leave.
Sigh. I feel like a broken record. Every time I write one of these things, I find myself saying the same nicey-nice shit: Don't get your heart broken! The trees are so pretty! Kill me!
Well, not everything is pretty. Tonight I got out the pen and paper and am now looking at a list of the 17 guys I've kissed in my time here. Only two of them were even halfway decent kissers. Uouf. And that '83, in his suite at the Hanover Inn. Make that 18. I feel, dirty. I feel ill.
But is that really so many? I mean that is basically four people per year, which is basically one person per quarter, which is basically the same as being Emily Dickinson wearing a lampshade-dress in an attic with no windows. Right?
Right! Did I say "unblinded?" I can always manage to make my hard facts add up to the nicey-nice bullshit I want to leave behind. So how exactly do you really quantify your college experience? By the bad kissers you treated like trophies, or the citations you earned by smiling? The friends you might not keep in touch with, or the addictions you will fight forever?
You measure it, unfortunately, by that person most likely to be in your blindspot, that person you're most likely to censor, since I'm mixing metaphors hopelessly now: You measure it by yourself.
Do you think you're stronger, or smarter, after your four years here? Do you think you've changed?
I'm taking a history class for the first time right now, so in trying to quantify my time here, I've decided to turn to my primary sources: The words I've written in these pages. One of my first articles for The Dartmouth from 2006 begins: "If you dream of rushing Kappa like I do" My sophomore year, I declared: "Dartmouth is an extended exercise in dumbing yourself down." And by junior year I was writing: "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."
Now here I am, with my bittersweet flashbacks. So why do I think of it as that one day, when I suddenly stopped censoring myself, when I suddenly went sky-diving out of love with this place? It was not one day; it was 1,000 days, or more. It took time. It was the parachute of irony with which I protected myself, and then one day, when the hills were rolling and the sunflowers booming, left behind.
