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Dear A Mitch,
I'm being haunted by the hookup from hell. At the beginning of last year I hooked up with a guy I thought I liked. Turns out he totally "New York'd" me. Now there's a rumor going around that I got an STI from him. The truth is I never slept with him and I don't have an STI, although he did give me a lesson in how guys can't think with both heads at the same time. How do I stop this rumor?
Pattie Cake,
Sometimes rumors are blessings in disguise. Take, for example, Harvey Mudd students. Most had a bad rumor made up about them in middle school that completely debilitated their social life and propelled them to eat Fritos and root beer for lunch in the science lab. That sounds pretty lame until ten years from now when they perfect nuclear fusion on earth and are forever known as those Frito-eating geniuses. If I were you I would grab that STI and run like the wind. You’re getting into Harvard Grad.
If you really can’t stand having guys avoid you like the Home section at Collins, there are a couple of things you can do. If you want it to be easy, just scan your STI test results and make copies for the gossip hounds. Hand it to them and say, “I actually don’t have [insert slandered STI].” Granted, they’ll have your blood counts and hormone levels to Photoshop, possibly turning you into an AIDS-infected hermaphrodite on paper.
You don’t like either of these suggestions, do you? Me neither. So maybe just talk to him. You’re furious right? No doubt, but I don’t think screaming insults will help. Find him alone and calmly tell him how much his lies hurt you. I know I sound like your mom in grade school when she was like, “Well tell Sarah it hurts your feelings when she calls you stupid.” And you said, “I know,” but in your head you were like there is no fucking way I am saying that. Well, you’re older now, and often genuinely informing someone how damaging their words are is far more powerful than yelling, cussing, and creating rumors about how their penis competes with your index finger in length. You don’t want to turn this into a game of tennis against a brick wall, or, rather relevantly, refuting anything Charles Johnson has to say.
Realistically, there is something to be said for the strength of a person who has the self-esteem to let a rumor run its course. You know the truth and hopefully your friends do too – why let him cut you even deeper by dwelling on this falsity?
A Mitch
Dear A Mitch,
Why are the guys at CMC douchebags?
Miss Descriptive,
In the same way Pomona boys are all pretentious, Mudders all hopelessly nerdy, and Scrippsies all scissoring humanitarians, CMC guys are just dicks. Please clump us together as a huge whale douche (the ocean?). Look, there are plenty of d bags at the 5C’s, and if we did a 5C statistical survey, I wouldn’t be surprised if CMC guys ranked first in douchebaggery. I do sometimes wonder as well – you aren’t the first person to have reoccurring issues with CMCers. If I am going to hypothesize as to why so many people think Stag=douchebag, I would need to organize my thoughts. Numbers will help. And then transition sentences are not necessary. Timesavas!
1. About thirty percent of CMC students are athletes. This means there’s a bevy of bros who not only have a stunning physique, but have likely been popular studs for most of their lives; they are the yeast in baking success with women (in high school at least). Athletes are not inherently douches by any means – they are simply more susceptible to the status. It is easier to disregard the feelings of another when there’s always going to be someone giving a shit about how damn good you look in crimson and gold.
2. Claremont McKenna teeters on the title of liberal arts college. This is a school popular for economics, business, and finance. We have more econ majors than Jay-Z has problems, okay, actually way more. Now this might be a leap, but I imagine the kid who wants to go to school for four years and have a $60,000± investment firm salary when they graduate is the type that prefers immediate gratification. Which translates to: Gettin’ mine tonight. Or, my deeper thoughts concerning how my actions might affect people are subordinate to my drive to be successful. But then you meet Moose Halpern and everything I just said sounds outlandish.
3. Where you are meeting these guys? TNC right? T - Thursday N - Night C - CLUB. Rasmussen’s latest poll shows that clubs are for womanizers. And menizers. Especially party clubs, where a large proportion of individuals are willing to play smoochikins at the end of the night. Are you getting my drift? If you are looking for someone who you can really connect with, maybe try developing friendships outside of the party scene. If you were to walk by the basketball suite on a Saturday night, you would probably hate all of us. But have a midday chat with Seth Winterroth and you might fall in love. Drunken debauchery is misrepresentative of who people are, and while it does define a small facet of a person, the larger fraction is more visible during Sunday’s coffee conversations, Tuesday night’s psych seminar, and green beach bathing in November.
So don’t stereotype us like I have in this response. You only know what you experience –alter the environment in which your judgments occur.
A Mitch
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