Dances, Debates and Ann Gray

Imagine you are in a public place like the quad outside the library or in one of your college's buildings just having a nice time. It's possible that you are standing around hanging with friends. You could also be alone. Suddenly a man you have never met before gets behind you and starts pressing his pelvis against you repeatedly. This seems inherently wrong, no? It can be classified as sexual assault or at least harassment, especially if you tell him to back off and then he just comes back a few minutes later to try again. There is definitely something perverse about this situation, and I would hope you all would agree.
Now my question is: Why does adding music to this situation make it socially acceptable? Friends, I am talking about college dances. These profoundly confusing events are quite different from high school in one aspect. In high school, if you choose to get hot and heavy on the dance floor, it is with someone you know. It is consensual. It is still creepy, but I digress. Here at college, males just prowl through the masses of dancing students, single out females, and then exert their will upon them.

This issue has forced females who attend dances to create a system of defense. The girls must dance in groups together, staying close to one another in order to defend themselves against the men. It's almost like how animals move in a pack to protect themselves against their predators. In the female's system of protection seen at dances, they dance fairly close together, and it often could be seen as intimate if it weren't for the fact that the reason they do this is  the "stalking" males cannot.



This brings me to my Saturday night, when I attended Bate's "Glow" dance. However, I will rewind to the beginning of the weekend, Friday.
As some of you may know (You'd know if  you kept TABS on me during the week. That was a debate joke. It's okay that you don't get it. If you did get it, you'd groan at it's lameness anyways.) I went to North Eastern this past weekend for a debate tournament. I originally wasn't planning on going due to the fact that I didn't really have any cases and I had just been at Brown the week before. However, the president of the Debate Team (You know, Ian.) stated at the beginning of one of our meetings that North Eastern needed  judges for the tournament, and requested Bates send some. I, being the gracious martyr I am, stepped up and volunteered my services in a eloquent and humble manner, giving a passionate speech pertaining to my allegiance to the Bates Debate team. The room, accordingly, burst out in applause for my altruistic behavior. Or, if you want the truth: I raised my hand and said "I'll be a judge", Ian gave a curt nod of acknowledgement and then continued on with his updates and reminders. But, you know, I'm sure people wanted to applaud.

Anyways, Friday I got in that white van we've all come to know and love, and set out for North Eastern. It was a pleasant drive filled with the tomfoolery of novices and the game "Contact", which invites such joy into the heart of the participants of the activity. We stopped at a Starbucks on the way to Boston, and I invested four dollars (a college student's equivalent to a small fortune) in a tall pumpkin latte. We arrived at North Eastern at around four, and the debates commenced. For my first time as a judge, I think I did adequately at the very least. In between rounds, the debaters would come up to me and ask what my decision was and why. I think I gave the right scores and helpful feedback. If not, I suppose I'll learn how to be a proper judge eventually. The last round of Friday ended at midnight (MIDNIGHT, YOU GUYS!) and so all of the Bates kids went to the housing they were assigned to and I went promptly to sleep.
 Fun story, you guys: The place where some of the debaters and I were assigned to sleep at was an apartment. And so most of the debaters set up their sleeping bags in the living room area. And by most of the debaters, I mean everyone but me. Because there was no room for me. So I slept in a separate room. Alone. Shivering all night. And Jarron insinuated I was ugly and called me flat. So yeah. Thanks, Jarron.

So the next day there were two more debate rounds  I judged, and then some novices and I got lunch at this Mexican place. It's weird how much Mexican food I've been having on the east coast. It's all been relatively good, by the way. I mean, no great, but it's palatable. While at the Mexican place, my friends (I think I can call them friends) talked and joked, which brings me to a new point:

Recently people have been learning I'm not the sweet and innocent person I seem to be at first glance. This is due to my inability to refrain from blurting out sexual jokes or just sort of weird things whenever I see an opportunity. I think I need to tone it down a bit. I've been called "cray-cray" (people say that a lot here. I dislike it.) a few too many times. I've also been called a gremlin, but I was told that being associated with a gremlin is not all negative. So I'll take what I can get. Mostly my inappropriate humor has been met with general acceptance, though. In fact, the humor most rejected by my fellow peers has been puns and play-on-words. They just don't appreciate it like you guys do.

Also, people here keep on commenting about how expressive and grandiose my facial expressions are. Why have you guys never commented on my seemingly theatrical visage? Do I make a lot of faces in comparison to other people? Are we just naturally more expressive people? Now I'm even more self conscious of my face. Haha. But seriously, is this why people are calling me crazy?

Alright, back to Saturday. Nobody made it into semi-finals at North Eastern, so we headed back to Bates College. I sat in the front of the van with Colin on the ride home and we talked about debate and cars (these are the things I brought up) and then sports and more sports (these are the things I did not bring up). Then Amit and Daniel started to talk about sports with Colin even more, so I decided it would be a good time to go to sleep. When we got home, I took a shower and met up with the novice debaters again (we spend a lot of time together), had dinner, and then watched the first episode of BBC's "Sherlock". It's a tradition now. Every Saturday we're going to watch "Sherlock" together. Then the novices and I headed down to Frye House. We met up with other debaters there and played a super awesome drinking game (or for me, a "watching others drink, but still participating" game) which required creativity and a good memory. I would try and explain it to you, but it's just too wonderful to put into words. Also, I'm lazy.

At eleven fifteen-ish, we all decided to head over to the "Glow" dance. This is where I learned about the magic of dancing with Virginia and Cat, who protect their fellow debater girls from sketchy college boys by just outright saying "back off" and sort of lightly pushing them away and intercepting. I felt protected.

When I was about to leave the dance I saw Colin arrive so I walked up to him and talked to him for a bit. Then we danced together for like 6 minutes. It was sort of awkward because he was really drunk, but it was mostly just funny. Then I got tired of dancing so we decided to leave "Glow". We had an adventure after we left the dance because Drunk Colin, it turns out, was really upset about how his friend, lets call her Bee (who was also drunk) went home with this guy (lets call him Jay) and he was afraid she was making a mistake by hooking up with him. So we traipsed on over to Bee's dorm and Colin knocked on her door and gave her the opportunity to get out of the situation. However, she did not wish to be bothered. So we just left and talked for a while. The next morning I got a text from Colin saying "what happened last night?" due to the fact that he had blacked out and didn't even remember going to the dance or hanging out. So an interesting weekend to be sure.

On Sunday I did some work, had brunch with Sammy, Colin, Taylor and Matt, then did some more work. Then I ate dinner alone.

On Monday I went to my classes, had debate, played a bananagrams-esque game with some debaters, then did more work and went to sleep.

On Tuesday, I had a chemistry lab where I worked with dangerous chemicals and frightening reactions. I didn't die, as you might have noticed. So that's good. I had brunch with my friends Matt, Amit and Julia (although I'm guessing only Matt actually sees me as a friend), and Matt and I decided to write a children's book called "Nobody likes Ann Gray". I'll be sure to send you a copy when it gets published. Here's a little excerpt from it:

"But I'm not wearing fur!" Ann cried at the PETA members who had thrown red paint at her.
"We know," They responded, "We know."

Sounds like a pretty good book, eh?

Today I did things, said stuff, and realized that my work load is greater than anticipated and my Chem grade is in more jeopardy than previously thought. I also need to take a shower. I don't like showers.

The end,
Nicole

P.S. I'm Ann Gray.