Summer of 2007. I've just graduated from high school, I'm awkward, I'm set to matriculate at Dartmouth and I spend my days trying (and failing) to get with girls and find that mythical fun-and-booze-filled party. I hear that there's a funny new movie out called "Superbad." I go see it. It's about some guys who are in their last few weeks of high school, are awkward, are set to matriculate at Dartmouth and spend their days pursuing the same goals that I do.
First off, that movie was unreasonably hilarious. Laughed till I cried. But I left the theater with a weird feeling in my stomach. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the Icee.
Fast forward to the present. I'm older and slightly less awkward. I sit down in front of a TV and "Animal House" is on. I watch it (not for the first time). It's about a bunch of dudes in Delta Tau Chi, doing their best to party, despite the ever-tightening grip of the administration. They're complete idiots, but they're also American heroes. I look around, and I'm sitting in Delta Tau Chi (so to speak), trying my best to party despite the ever-tightening grip of the administration. I'm an idiot. Probably not an American hero. That feeling in my stomach comes back.
I feel uncomfortable watching any mainstream movie that's ostensibly about my life. Sometimes I get that feeling when I watch a movie that resonates on a more abstract level. Like, "Hey, this protagonist is experiencing some difficulties with women right now, and I feel like I've experienced those exact same difficulties before!" (See: "Swingers") That's easy to dismiss when it stays in the abstract. When Dartmouth is the alma mater, it hits home a lot harder.
The thing that bothers me is how pathetic my life looks when you put it through the lens of a Hollywood movie. And I don't mean this in the same way that a CIA spy would feel pathetic if he watched James Bond movies. I don't want to be superhuman. I just want my own life, not a paler version of somebody else's.
Yeah, the things I say aren't nearly as quotable as the things that Otter and McLovin say, but my actions and values really aren't that far off. They're caught in this hilariously static state of arrested development (RIP). The movie starts and the movie ends and one of the things that we laugh at most is how little they've learned over the course of those 90 minutes. Those Delta boys are still causing trouble, despite the clear detriment it's having on their futures. Seth and Evan have learned that you need to separate in order to get closer to other people, but lest we forget, that was Emma Stone aka Jules idea. They're still hopeless.
I like to picture myself as being above the pettiness of these movie characters. I mean, sure, I enjoy talking about Seinfeldian little things ("She eats her peas one at a time!"), but isn't there something more to my life? If somebody watched the movie of my Dartmouth life, would they be laughing at how little I've learned over the course of the 90 minutes/four years? I'm afraid of the answer.
I hope that's not the case. I mean, realistically, I've changed and grown a lot as a person over four years. Definitely not physically. Unlike everybody else in college, I was looking forward to the freshman fifteen, but that never happened. Seriously though, I have grown as a person. Don't ask me how. I'm not sure. But I do know that when I look at the '14s, I see a clear difference between them and me, and it's not just that I know how to highlight text when I respond to a blitz.
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL is that my maturation is a win-win, whether it happened or not. If it did happen, then sweet. I'm more mature and I feel like my experience here is completely validated. If it didn't happen, then sweet. I'm gonna write a screenplay about it. And I'll make some kid who's about to matriculate into the Class of 2044 get that feeling in his stomach. Karma's a bitch.
