Life As A Cherub

I just got home, after living at Northwestern University with 87 of my best friends for five weeks. It's painfully quiet at home. Nobody runs down the hallway, nobody blasts The Fugees at 1 a.m., nobody punches the wall after somebody else catches a flush on the river. My dog barks occasionally though.

As sappy and melodramatic as it sounds, I can genuinely say that I've never had such an earth-shatteringly profound experience in my 17 years of life. I walked into a situation where I was one of seven black people in a population of roughly 90. I walked into a situation in which I was a neophyte regarding the curriculum. I walked into a situation in which I, as a male, was outnumbered 3-1 by the opposite sex (something I managed to get through, of course). I walked into a situation in which I knew absolutely nobody. No one, not even loosely.

Living with people, complete strangers actually, is the definition of a leap of faith. You are trapped. With your roommate, you are trapped. People must recognize this at first and thus put forth a concerted effort to be pleasant and somewhat congenial. It's wildly interesting; it makes me wonder if my counselors weren't actually journalists at all. Maybe they were sociologists, and they studied us and our interactions (or lack thereof).

It doesn't take guys long to make acquaintances. There's the common ground we all share some expertise in - sports. On the first day, I argued baseball and the NBA Draft with people whose names I could barely remember for at least three hours. Sports really opened the door for me to develop 10-12 friendships. If there isn't anything interesting to talk about, talk about sports.

Now the ladies were a whole different animal. The first day a few valiant dames climbed the steps to the fourth floor and introduced themselves, but besides that the girls spent the first week as exotic birds or butterflies spend their lives at the zoo. "Look at her!" "Oooh, I wonder what they call that one!" "Don't say that to her, she'll bite." "I dare you to touch it!" "I've never seen one from there before."

An ice-breaker here and an arduous assignment there eliminated any reluctance remaining after the first couple days. At a group activity in which we'd rush to fill in the spaces in a human circle in order to avoid sharing personal details, I had to reveal my adolescent infidelity to about 100 students and instructors I didn't know 12 hours beforehand. For the next week, I was "the kid who cheated" and I was forced to tell my adulterous tale over and over and over.

Once you find your comfort zone in a land of former strangers, there is an incredible shift in your social consciousness. Wait, that's sounds way too Freudian. Never mind.

Okay, once you get comfortable around these people, you forget what home was like. The dorm becomes your home, in every sense of the word. You call it home, you do the things you did at your house. You forget about your friends and family. Who needs them? You have 87 new ones, and you are with them every hour of every day. The people you are really fond of become your new family. They are the people you eat with in the cafeteria every day. The people you tell things that, in all honesty, you probably wouldn't even tell your "family" back at "home". The people you loan money to. The people you sit next to during every lecture, in the exact same seat.

Ah, summer camp romance. It's puppy love, Balco-style. Everything moves at light speed. Especially when there are three girls for every guy. Competition is a beautiful thing, nature's gift to the desired. As a guy, you felt like the good pieces of fruit at the grocery store. All these people combed through the bruised, degenerated produce at breakneck speed to get to me and the rest of the guys. Once someone finds you, it's painfully difficult not to abuse them as they bask in their pride and show off "what they found". You can do no wrong, the girl becomes the aggressor and she has her way with you, her prize. Of course there were exceptions; guys shadowing their "cherub hookup" across every square foot of Evanston, not wanting to waste one second of those precious 38 days by being alone.

But back to my POV, the unusual one sprouting from an estrogen-heavy environment.

Being found isn't even half the fun. It's being protected that's the interesting part. Sometimes, girls would do things for you just to keep your attention, to keep you interested in her and not in her roommate, or the girl down the hall, or the girl in your group, or the girl who sat next to you in class last night. It was a beautiful thing.

No matter how many times you and the person who found you try to deny it, attachment happens. Why do you think you sit next to her in class, at the cafeteria, spend more time in her room than yours? You've fallen for her. Your four week relationship will be at the same stage a normal four month relationship is. You spend 14 hours a day together and, if you are me, have gotten closer emotionally and intellectually than you'd ever intended. The leap of faith will pay off.