Writer's Block: Youthful Transgressions

[apocalypsos]

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Going to college. Definitely.

It's not that I think I should have never gone to college. It's that I think I was far too immature and introverted to go. Hell, I knew I wasn't ready for college back then. Right after I graduated high school, I sat down with my dad and told him I thought it would be best if I took a year off before I went to college. I'm not sure if I even knew what a gap year was back then, I just knew that I didn't feel like I'd do well in college if I went immediately after high school due to my social and academic awkwardness on occasion. I was sheltered and I knew it, and it was probably the most responsible thought I could have had at the time.

My father told me I was going to college whether I like it or not because if I didn't go then I'd probably never go.

I flunked out three years later carrying two credit cards' worth of irresponsible idiotic debt, had a minor meltdown, and drove sobbing to a friend's house in Virginia without informing my parents. Yeah, good times.

(The meltdown was a long time coming. When I said during last year's bout of depression that I'm pretty sure I have a history of it, I think that if anybody had paid more than five seconds worth of attention to me during my third year of college, they would have steered me towards the health center and put me on medication so fast my head would have spun.)

The gay guy who Jess and I used to hang out with -- he and his boyfriend have been homebodies for a while now, so I think Jess may have given up to inviting them out to the bar other than in a polite perfunctory way -- said once that he and Jess were the ones who always have to be the center of attention, and his boyfriend and I are more like the sidekicks. I couldn't exactly argue that. I've always been the one who hangs back while other people are more sociable, and I usually fail completely when I try being the center of attention in a public setting.

It goes to why I should have waited for college -- because back then I didn't do well thrown full-tilt into situations, and only through gritted teeth and a forced smile do I manage it now. I lived in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't popular, I didn't hang out with a large crowd of people or make a habit of going anywhere outside of town other than my friends' houses and the mall. I might as well have never left my house, for all the experience I had with anything outside of my small sphere of existence.

The hilarious thing about the whole virgin thing is that I still think I would be in a better place now if I would have waited for college and just screwed one of my ex-boyfriends instead. ;)

Comments

[theliel.livejournal.com]

wow. i've got a twofer for that one. and oddly enough it invovles college.
i think around that time of life you've got no life expiernce to really guide you but all the rope to hang yourself with.

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on that (although it's not my biggest regret). I definitely should have waited a year myself although more because I was sick of school and my supposed major didn't work out. I just hate all the pressure to go directly from high school, part of the reason I wanted to go was to have the whole freshman experience which pretty much sucked.

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

You know, if you have three years of credit, you probably have enough to get your Associates' degree - why not check with your local community college?

[jenni-the-odd.livejournal.com]

I have long maintained that college was one of my biggest mistakes, followed closely by my choice of what to major in once I managed to claw my way through to the point where I actually had to pick a major (this was after flunking out of one university; not sure I ever told my parents I'd actually been academically dismissed. Pretty sure they think I was just on probation). I remember being a senior in high school, telling my mother that I wasn't sure I wanted to go to college. We were in the car at the time, with her at the wheel, and she very nearly hit a mailbox before telling me in no uncertain terms that I was being selfish and I WAS going to college, no matter what.
I reacted to college much the same way you did-- there were weeks when I didn't leave my apartment. To this day I am still not sure how many of my "show up for a class I've never attended and have to take an exam" dreams were made-up and how many were real, because I know I really did do that at least once or twice. Those two years are still very garbled in my head, and I don't remember what classes I took, or what I did for much of it.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Going to university was probably a mistake for me, too. I didn't realize how little support I had gotten from my parents, teachers, counselors, etc. until I went to college and discovered that I may have been smart enough for class, but was woefully underprepared to deal with "adult problems". Not just sex, but how to study properly for class, learning about student loans, dealing with professors who were alcoholics and thieves, fellow students who were druggies or fundies, the 90% of people who didn't care about school and just wanted to drink 3.2% beer until they barfed.

I must have been in my early 30s before I developed the skills to deal with these kind of people. On another journal I mentioned how a guy on Usenet stalked me by sending me gifts through Amazon (along with other stalking behavior). Back then I just put up with it, nowadays I'd write 25 blog entries with all his personal info AND file a police report.

Some people can be thrown into situations and thrive, but I think a lot of us don't work that way.