Trigger Warning: Abuse
“Final Fantasy VII.” “Final Fantasy XIV: Online.” “Final Destination” 1-6. “The final countdown.” “Finally Found You” by Enrique Iglesias. This is my final frat-related article and potentially my last article for the CT before I fucking graduate you dumbass.
I am currently at my parents’ house in Long Island, and because of COVID-19, dancing and drinking in densely packed spaces is now a distant memory. So this is the conclusion to my frat review series.
I started writing frat reviews because I wanted an excuse to get drunk and have sex, and also because I hate men as a population but still get caught in that sticky web of Man is Nice To You Once — Suddenly, You Forgot All Those Times Where Man Invalidated Your Personhood And Made You Feel Like A Small, Shitty Little Bug. I did get drunk a lot, but I don’t think I ever had sex with any random people. People at frat parties are actually very gross-looking and sweaty.
I don’t think I learned anything other than that I still hate men but am willing to please them. Isn’t that the worst part of being a woman? Maybe your dad abused you. Maybe you were walking down the street when you were 16 and a guy told you how hot you looked. A professor looked down your shirt and still gave your male lab partner a higher grade.
You still want them all to like you. The more men take, the more you want to give.
That’s how I feel, at least. The more gross and depressed a frat party made me, the more exciting it was to write about. I love the thrill of knowing that I’m making a bad decision. Like talking to someone I shouldn’t be talking to, drinking to forget how bored and lonely I am, or going to someone’s dorm at 3 a.m. to not get exactly what I wanted.
Sometimes I really did have fun at those parties. It was usually when my friends were with me. A lot of friends I went to frat parties with aren’t my friends anymore. Or maybe I still like them but they don’t like me, or vice versa. I wouldn’t know; I’m too afraid to ask someone what they think about me. I’m even more afraid to tell someone else what I think about them!
All those nights where we danced in someone else’s basement, I couldn’t help but think about violence. People getting sick, forgetting who they’re kissing, yelling at each other, texting “I love you” and forgetting. My friends wanting to go home, me not being ready yet. “It’s for the article!” I would say. But you’re always exposed at a frat party.
I was breathing in other people’s sweat, and I didn’t know any of their names and I didn’t care. There were a lot of moments where I didn’t feel hot enough to be there. There is a part of me that has always craved attention from those “normal” boys, the ones that own six pairs of the same basketball shorts and shove their dicks in you without asking how it feels. I was always waiting for something, the realization of a debasing fantasy I started to concoct in high school. The idea was simple — if the normal boy likes you, suddenly, you become normal, too.
Eventually I started getting sick of it. All of it — the boys and their parties and my friends who I don’t know and don’t really know me. I don’t like playing babysitter to dumbass boys who have the emotional range of a chestnut! I don’t like the fact that a lot of boys I knew in college liked me enough to keep around for a long time, only to drop me when they got a girlfriend! What is that! Casual violence! Casual callousness. I don’t know who I will still talk to from college, and I only have a vague idea of who wants to talk to me.
Here’s the thing: Reviews are just one person’s opinion. You can assign all the numerical values you want. You can make up arbitrary rules about what makes something good and what doesn’t. There’s nothing true about anything other than what you decide, and I can’t decide anything — not yet, at least.
