The night before I slept only 2 hours because your sleep schedule tends to get messed up when you have no obligations like a job or friends. I also couldn't sleep because I was excited. I coped with all the college platitudes, "You can reinvent yourself there!", "It gets better in college" but deep down my skeptic, realist self knew that it wasn't true. Still, I had some hope it would be a little better. Fuck it, I was just excited about the overnight orientation event because of the prospect of social interaction after the endless, torturous summer days I spent in total isolation without even the company of some good video games. I spent most days/nights like ER, wandering the streets hoping someone would talk to me.
When my brother and I stopped during the 2 hour trip there so I could piss in the bushes, I hit a big leaf with my stream and it slid off onto my shoes while I was too busy looking around paranoid to notice before it was too late. A fitting omen. We drove by a gas station a minute later. Of course I had only thought to bring 2 pairs of socks which would have been fine if I were a normal person who doesn’t have the kinds of ridiculous troubles I seem to be attracted to like pissing on their own shoes accidentally. Also among my packing oversights that I had not yet noticed, I forgot my towel, pillow, blanket, and new shoes I was excited to wear to blend in with the normies
I arrived at the check-in area and my brother left me. I eyed the sea of normies and tried to stay optimistic. Soon I could be just like them. I am just like them. After check-in, I was guided to my room where I set my stuff and then I found my way to the dining hall listed on the orientation schedule. When I came to the area where food was being served, I felt a surge of anxiety. I hadn't spoken to anyone the whole summer, and my social anxiety was in full force. I felt that I could not even ask for food. When I had walked in, someone at the entrance told me and the people around me that we only had a few minutes left to eat so I felt pressed for time. My fear of going hungry overtook my anxiety, and I quickly asked for a few inconspicuous food items that everyone else was choosing. I chose an empty table and sat. A tall white chad asked if he could sit at my table. I tried making conversation with him, this was the start of the amazing, sociable new me after all. I ran out of banal questions to ask and I felt that the conversation had grown stilted, so I reverted to my usual autistic habit of saying of-the-wall shit to make things more casual. I said something like, “I’m just hoping to lose my virginity this year,” to which he laughed at, but I still felt like I had said something lame if not uncomfortable, so I stayed quiet until we left for the main events.
I found my orientation group among the many standing outside the dining hall. One of the guys in my group, a tall white normie made a remark as he saw me looking down at the physical copy of the orientation schedule. He said something about looking at it on the orientation app. I had heard of it when signing up for orientation online but I hadn’t downloaded it, and standing there I felt a familiar inferiority. Of course I didn’t need to be carrying the paper schedule and school map around with me, but using the app had not occurred to me. For one, I had little experience with apps in general having previously only used my cellphone to call my mother. I also could not figure out how to connect to the campus wifi, another thing I suspected was a sign of my inexperience with phones. My group member’s innocuous comment reminded me of the discrepancy between me and my peers where they naturally had easy solutions to things I struggled with.
I heard a shout, and the orientation leaders began to stream single file into the middle of the field we were all standing on while they chanted some orientation hype song. A few minutes later, my group and I met our orientation leader who had us stand in a circle for the first icebreaker game. We were to say our names and then an adjective that described us. Someone took the one I was planning to use, and I racked my empty brain trying to think of another one. It was my turn. “Mad,” was all I could think of. Once I’d thought of the word, I thought of the “deep” and subtle ways it suited me and when I tried to think of a word that was better than the baffling “mad”, I drew a blank. I had already hesitated long enough to be conspicuous in a last ditch effort to think of another word, and my self-consciousness about my choice made me mumble so I had to repeat myself. “Oookay,” my orientation leader replied and moved to the next person, she and everyone else obviously finding me slightly off. The temperature was in the mid to high 80s and I was already sweating profusely as I do in my black jeans as I cursed myself for not wearing shorts. I had wanted to look my best which accounted for my choice of wear, not thinking about the weather. I then realized that my jeans, which were part of a whole new wardrobe I had purchased a few weeks prior with the help of my sister in preparation for college, did not quite fit me and were slipping a little ways too much for comfort. My orientation leader was giving out her number to all of us ensuring to “text her if we needed anything”, and while I fumbled with my phone far longer than everyone else, struggling to input my first contact ever, she complimented a girl on her Converse. I felt a pang of disappointment as I looked down at my own shoes. My new black Vans would have matched my pants perfectly and I very well could have been the recipient of a compliment had I not overlooked in packing them. Each orientation group had a unique name and chant to go along with it. Ours incorporated the “catch me outside” meme, which I smiled at. As our group made our way to the building that conducted the orientation presentations, our leader initiated the chant several times. Out of character for me, I joined in. I was still trying to be optimistic.
Our group took our seats at one of the tables to the far front left of the large room. I eyed the exit, thankful for our proximity to it if I needed a quick getaway. We played some more icebreaker games. One of them involved standing in a large circle formed by 2 groups, and the orientation leaders passed around toilet paper and slyly told us to roll off “how much we needed to get the job done”. I rolled off 4 squares, the amount I used to fap. They revealed that the number of squares we rolled off was the number of facts we had to state about ourselves. One of the orientation leaders added something I do not quite remember, but it was something that had the effect that we absolutely had to do it. As they went around the circle—one guy went, enthusiastically and effortlessly rattling off facts about his life, lightheartedly adding in that he “loved talking about himself” as one of the facts—I grew more and more nervous scrambling to conjour a single solitary fact about myself that would not bring negative attention to me, but also was not too boring. When we were interrupted by the schedule of orientation presentations before I had to go, I was relieved, disrupted by the assurance that we would continue the game later, which we never did.
By this time my gung-ho optimism began to fade, and my lack of sleep caught up to me as I watched the orientation presentations on the projector through glazed, zombie-like eyes. As I expected, the presentations cheesily covered all the college platitudes about social lives, drinking, drugs, sex, etc. I halfheartedly assured myself that I would get the opportunity to engage in any of those things soon enough. In between presentations my group’s orientation leader talked about the issues discussed. I felt rather disturbingly, like the orientation leaders giving the presentations and conducting discussions at the tables were not acting quite human, their plastic cheerfulness and platitudes about clichéd topics brought up seeming almost programmed. In imitation, my group members took on similarly fake personas. One series of icebreaker games involved the entire room getting up and asking people around them a few common questions they supplied us with. My orientation leader had witness my social incompetence in the group, and she encouraged me to go “meet some peeps”. I did my best to look inviting, and was miffed when some people seemed to avoid my gaze. I managed to talk to a few people briefly. It was around this time, watching everyone around me effortlessly converse, that I lostallhope.com. I was completely exhausted at this point, and wanted to be free of the whole event as soon as possible. As if sensing my complaints, they addressed the low energy in the room and had everyone stand up as they led a dance. I was done by that point however, and stood off to the side. It was true, everyone in the room was probably tired after the hours of presentations we sat through, but I was 2 hours of sleep tired. I stepped outside the room to use the bathroom, and decided to linger a bit before returning to hell. I had started to feel very suicidal as all the hopes I had about college dissolved. I climbed the stairs to the 5th floor, the top, and stared down. It was a much more intense feeling than the dull ache I felt the entire summer long, and I felt I wanted to die right then. I was not planning to jump or anything, I just stood there and enjoyed the edginess of looking down from height while wanting to die. I thought of the highest places on campus I had researched beforehand and noted that I’d need to go check them out after all.
When I returned my group was engaged in another activity where they stood in a circle and an orientation leader would tell us to step forward if we knew someone who had suffered [insert social injustice]. I found it embarrassing and I had conspicuously arrived late, struggling to find a spot in the circle, so I decided to not step forward at all. I felt bitterness towards the activity. It addressed racism, homophobia, headlining catching social injustices like that, but never mentioned anything about the type of suffering I faced much more prevalently than getting called a nigger occasionally on the street by passing cars.
One activity near the end of the presentations involved members of my group talking to one another. Most of the group discussions up until now involved dialogue only between us and our leader. We were tasked with partnering up with the person next to us and telling them how our social life would be different in college vs. high school. It was like I was being made fun of. I was partnered with a cute white girl to whom I was heavily attracted. She had a boyfriend of course. Clearly uncomfortable with being partnered with me, she awkwardly explained to me how her family and friend dynamics would shift and she would have to make it work and expectantly glanced at me. I said nothing. I was sitting next to my orientation leader and she repeated the question to me. I had no response as usual when she has tried to get me to speak. Seeing me on my phone she asked me what videos I watch. I was going to say nothing, but after I few seconds I replied, “porn videos” and grinned while dying inside.
After a break for lunch in which I picked up things I didn’t have to ask to be served, I took an unsubstantial nap. I took off my shoes for it to discover that they smelled like piss. I changed them, painfully aware of the fact that I only had one pair to last me the rest of the day and the next while I sweat like a pig in them. I felt unclean from my sweating throughout the day and standing in my sweat-soaked, slightly piss smelling socks. I met my group again and we were led on a tour through campus. I stayed towards the back of the group and enviously watched the others in their already newly-formed friendships. After that we returned to the large room for more presentations before we were finally dismissed for the evening. I contemplated what to do with my time. I had not made even a single acquaintance that day. I thought about going to sleep early and while I was very sleep deprived, I suddenly was not tired at all. I could not just go to sleep while everyone else was socializing. I considered the dodgeball game they mentioned when they dismissed us, but it was being held in the rec center, and I did not know where that was. I was too meek and demoralized to asked, and I suspected I would not know where to go even being provided direction. I started to walk around. As I walked I contemplated my miserable existence. I walked for a long while as I refused to go to bed and admit defeat. I passed by others all walking in groups. I practiced my wallspins that I recently learned on the many flat walls. I found myself walking in circles and was too concerned with getting lost to venture far. I climbed a tree and loudly REEEEed down at some guys laying down and sitting by a hammock. They laughed. I did it again. They laughed less this time. I did again slightly worse and got no response. I let myself down to the ground and landed ungracefully getting dirt on myself. I ran away from the tree and did a frontflip in the grass and landed so I had to roll again. I ran towards and pole and grabbed it with one arm, swinging around and REEEEing one last time before walking back to my room.
It was then when I went to take a shower before bed that I realized I forgot my towel. I asked someone for an extra and managed to sound unshaken when asking them. Missing towel? Oh, I’ll just ask someone for an extra, no sweat. After I finally prepared myself for bed, I discovered my missing blanket and pillow. I laid on the mattress that held my cover sheet (I managed to remember that at least), wearing my chinos I packed for warmth, and laying my head the shirt I would wear the next day. It was 11 or 12 when I went to sleep, and I awoke at 5. I sensed I would not fall asleep again and cursed my sleep schedule. After how exhausted I had been, I would not be able to sleep through the night because of my previous nocturnal sleep schedule I maintained for months beforehand. I put on my shirt and shoes and walked down the hall to a small lounge area and sat on one of the couches. I had nothing to do but kill time so I just sat there and closed my eyes although I knew sleep would not come. After a while of that I walked downstairs into the main lobby and sat on of the couches there. I observed one girl after another come down via the elevator holding sleeping supplies and leave. I was puzzled as to where they were going with that stuff at 5am. I eventually returned to my room and laid in bed until morning.
I left for breakfast at the dining hall. I still felt the social anxiety block so I sat at an empty table in the middle of the busy dining hall without getting anything. A guy dressed in the familiar orientation leader dress asked if he could sit at my table and greeted me. I told him in a small beta voice that I was not sure I wanted to go there. When he asked me why I found myself unable to articulate anything other than “can’t make friends” and he left me with general platitudes about how I could reinvent myself and how college isn’t for everyone. I at least managed to get breakfast.
The day consisted of yet more presentations and then finally major specific meetings. I half slept through my undeclared major meetings, met with my advisers to set my schedule and left feeling empty and majorly suicidal, a feeling that would last through up until actual start of school, where my hopes would be briefly restored. But just lol. My actually uni experience turned out worse than I ever anticipated.
-My Twisted World Part Two
When my brother and I stopped during the 2 hour trip there so I could piss in the bushes, I hit a big leaf with my stream and it slid off onto my shoes while I was too busy looking around paranoid to notice before it was too late. A fitting omen. We drove by a gas station a minute later. Of course I had only thought to bring 2 pairs of socks which would have been fine if I were a normal person who doesn’t have the kinds of ridiculous troubles I seem to be attracted to like pissing on their own shoes accidentally. Also among my packing oversights that I had not yet noticed, I forgot my towel, pillow, blanket, and new shoes I was excited to wear to blend in with the normies
I arrived at the check-in area and my brother left me. I eyed the sea of normies and tried to stay optimistic. Soon I could be just like them. I am just like them. After check-in, I was guided to my room where I set my stuff and then I found my way to the dining hall listed on the orientation schedule. When I came to the area where food was being served, I felt a surge of anxiety. I hadn't spoken to anyone the whole summer, and my social anxiety was in full force. I felt that I could not even ask for food. When I had walked in, someone at the entrance told me and the people around me that we only had a few minutes left to eat so I felt pressed for time. My fear of going hungry overtook my anxiety, and I quickly asked for a few inconspicuous food items that everyone else was choosing. I chose an empty table and sat. A tall white chad asked if he could sit at my table. I tried making conversation with him, this was the start of the amazing, sociable new me after all. I ran out of banal questions to ask and I felt that the conversation had grown stilted, so I reverted to my usual autistic habit of saying of-the-wall shit to make things more casual. I said something like, “I’m just hoping to lose my virginity this year,” to which he laughed at, but I still felt like I had said something lame if not uncomfortable, so I stayed quiet until we left for the main events.
I found my orientation group among the many standing outside the dining hall. One of the guys in my group, a tall white normie made a remark as he saw me looking down at the physical copy of the orientation schedule. He said something about looking at it on the orientation app. I had heard of it when signing up for orientation online but I hadn’t downloaded it, and standing there I felt a familiar inferiority. Of course I didn’t need to be carrying the paper schedule and school map around with me, but using the app had not occurred to me. For one, I had little experience with apps in general having previously only used my cellphone to call my mother. I also could not figure out how to connect to the campus wifi, another thing I suspected was a sign of my inexperience with phones. My group member’s innocuous comment reminded me of the discrepancy between me and my peers where they naturally had easy solutions to things I struggled with.
I heard a shout, and the orientation leaders began to stream single file into the middle of the field we were all standing on while they chanted some orientation hype song. A few minutes later, my group and I met our orientation leader who had us stand in a circle for the first icebreaker game. We were to say our names and then an adjective that described us. Someone took the one I was planning to use, and I racked my empty brain trying to think of another one. It was my turn. “Mad,” was all I could think of. Once I’d thought of the word, I thought of the “deep” and subtle ways it suited me and when I tried to think of a word that was better than the baffling “mad”, I drew a blank. I had already hesitated long enough to be conspicuous in a last ditch effort to think of another word, and my self-consciousness about my choice made me mumble so I had to repeat myself. “Oookay,” my orientation leader replied and moved to the next person, she and everyone else obviously finding me slightly off. The temperature was in the mid to high 80s and I was already sweating profusely as I do in my black jeans as I cursed myself for not wearing shorts. I had wanted to look my best which accounted for my choice of wear, not thinking about the weather. I then realized that my jeans, which were part of a whole new wardrobe I had purchased a few weeks prior with the help of my sister in preparation for college, did not quite fit me and were slipping a little ways too much for comfort. My orientation leader was giving out her number to all of us ensuring to “text her if we needed anything”, and while I fumbled with my phone far longer than everyone else, struggling to input my first contact ever, she complimented a girl on her Converse. I felt a pang of disappointment as I looked down at my own shoes. My new black Vans would have matched my pants perfectly and I very well could have been the recipient of a compliment had I not overlooked in packing them. Each orientation group had a unique name and chant to go along with it. Ours incorporated the “catch me outside” meme, which I smiled at. As our group made our way to the building that conducted the orientation presentations, our leader initiated the chant several times. Out of character for me, I joined in. I was still trying to be optimistic.
Our group took our seats at one of the tables to the far front left of the large room. I eyed the exit, thankful for our proximity to it if I needed a quick getaway. We played some more icebreaker games. One of them involved standing in a large circle formed by 2 groups, and the orientation leaders passed around toilet paper and slyly told us to roll off “how much we needed to get the job done”. I rolled off 4 squares, the amount I used to fap. They revealed that the number of squares we rolled off was the number of facts we had to state about ourselves. One of the orientation leaders added something I do not quite remember, but it was something that had the effect that we absolutely had to do it. As they went around the circle—one guy went, enthusiastically and effortlessly rattling off facts about his life, lightheartedly adding in that he “loved talking about himself” as one of the facts—I grew more and more nervous scrambling to conjour a single solitary fact about myself that would not bring negative attention to me, but also was not too boring. When we were interrupted by the schedule of orientation presentations before I had to go, I was relieved, disrupted by the assurance that we would continue the game later, which we never did.
By this time my gung-ho optimism began to fade, and my lack of sleep caught up to me as I watched the orientation presentations on the projector through glazed, zombie-like eyes. As I expected, the presentations cheesily covered all the college platitudes about social lives, drinking, drugs, sex, etc. I halfheartedly assured myself that I would get the opportunity to engage in any of those things soon enough. In between presentations my group’s orientation leader talked about the issues discussed. I felt rather disturbingly, like the orientation leaders giving the presentations and conducting discussions at the tables were not acting quite human, their plastic cheerfulness and platitudes about clichéd topics brought up seeming almost programmed. In imitation, my group members took on similarly fake personas. One series of icebreaker games involved the entire room getting up and asking people around them a few common questions they supplied us with. My orientation leader had witness my social incompetence in the group, and she encouraged me to go “meet some peeps”. I did my best to look inviting, and was miffed when some people seemed to avoid my gaze. I managed to talk to a few people briefly. It was around this time, watching everyone around me effortlessly converse, that I lostallhope.com. I was completely exhausted at this point, and wanted to be free of the whole event as soon as possible. As if sensing my complaints, they addressed the low energy in the room and had everyone stand up as they led a dance. I was done by that point however, and stood off to the side. It was true, everyone in the room was probably tired after the hours of presentations we sat through, but I was 2 hours of sleep tired. I stepped outside the room to use the bathroom, and decided to linger a bit before returning to hell. I had started to feel very suicidal as all the hopes I had about college dissolved. I climbed the stairs to the 5th floor, the top, and stared down. It was a much more intense feeling than the dull ache I felt the entire summer long, and I felt I wanted to die right then. I was not planning to jump or anything, I just stood there and enjoyed the edginess of looking down from height while wanting to die. I thought of the highest places on campus I had researched beforehand and noted that I’d need to go check them out after all.
When I returned my group was engaged in another activity where they stood in a circle and an orientation leader would tell us to step forward if we knew someone who had suffered [insert social injustice]. I found it embarrassing and I had conspicuously arrived late, struggling to find a spot in the circle, so I decided to not step forward at all. I felt bitterness towards the activity. It addressed racism, homophobia, headlining catching social injustices like that, but never mentioned anything about the type of suffering I faced much more prevalently than getting called a nigger occasionally on the street by passing cars.
One activity near the end of the presentations involved members of my group talking to one another. Most of the group discussions up until now involved dialogue only between us and our leader. We were tasked with partnering up with the person next to us and telling them how our social life would be different in college vs. high school. It was like I was being made fun of. I was partnered with a cute white girl to whom I was heavily attracted. She had a boyfriend of course. Clearly uncomfortable with being partnered with me, she awkwardly explained to me how her family and friend dynamics would shift and she would have to make it work and expectantly glanced at me. I said nothing. I was sitting next to my orientation leader and she repeated the question to me. I had no response as usual when she has tried to get me to speak. Seeing me on my phone she asked me what videos I watch. I was going to say nothing, but after I few seconds I replied, “porn videos” and grinned while dying inside.
After a break for lunch in which I picked up things I didn’t have to ask to be served, I took an unsubstantial nap. I took off my shoes for it to discover that they smelled like piss. I changed them, painfully aware of the fact that I only had one pair to last me the rest of the day and the next while I sweat like a pig in them. I felt unclean from my sweating throughout the day and standing in my sweat-soaked, slightly piss smelling socks. I met my group again and we were led on a tour through campus. I stayed towards the back of the group and enviously watched the others in their already newly-formed friendships. After that we returned to the large room for more presentations before we were finally dismissed for the evening. I contemplated what to do with my time. I had not made even a single acquaintance that day. I thought about going to sleep early and while I was very sleep deprived, I suddenly was not tired at all. I could not just go to sleep while everyone else was socializing. I considered the dodgeball game they mentioned when they dismissed us, but it was being held in the rec center, and I did not know where that was. I was too meek and demoralized to asked, and I suspected I would not know where to go even being provided direction. I started to walk around. As I walked I contemplated my miserable existence. I walked for a long while as I refused to go to bed and admit defeat. I passed by others all walking in groups. I practiced my wallspins that I recently learned on the many flat walls. I found myself walking in circles and was too concerned with getting lost to venture far. I climbed a tree and loudly REEEEed down at some guys laying down and sitting by a hammock. They laughed. I did it again. They laughed less this time. I did again slightly worse and got no response. I let myself down to the ground and landed ungracefully getting dirt on myself. I ran away from the tree and did a frontflip in the grass and landed so I had to roll again. I ran towards and pole and grabbed it with one arm, swinging around and REEEEing one last time before walking back to my room.
It was then when I went to take a shower before bed that I realized I forgot my towel. I asked someone for an extra and managed to sound unshaken when asking them. Missing towel? Oh, I’ll just ask someone for an extra, no sweat. After I finally prepared myself for bed, I discovered my missing blanket and pillow. I laid on the mattress that held my cover sheet (I managed to remember that at least), wearing my chinos I packed for warmth, and laying my head the shirt I would wear the next day. It was 11 or 12 when I went to sleep, and I awoke at 5. I sensed I would not fall asleep again and cursed my sleep schedule. After how exhausted I had been, I would not be able to sleep through the night because of my previous nocturnal sleep schedule I maintained for months beforehand. I put on my shirt and shoes and walked down the hall to a small lounge area and sat on one of the couches. I had nothing to do but kill time so I just sat there and closed my eyes although I knew sleep would not come. After a while of that I walked downstairs into the main lobby and sat on of the couches there. I observed one girl after another come down via the elevator holding sleeping supplies and leave. I was puzzled as to where they were going with that stuff at 5am. I eventually returned to my room and laid in bed until morning.
I left for breakfast at the dining hall. I still felt the social anxiety block so I sat at an empty table in the middle of the busy dining hall without getting anything. A guy dressed in the familiar orientation leader dress asked if he could sit at my table and greeted me. I told him in a small beta voice that I was not sure I wanted to go there. When he asked me why I found myself unable to articulate anything other than “can’t make friends” and he left me with general platitudes about how I could reinvent myself and how college isn’t for everyone. I at least managed to get breakfast.
The day consisted of yet more presentations and then finally major specific meetings. I half slept through my undeclared major meetings, met with my advisers to set my schedule and left feeling empty and majorly suicidal, a feeling that would last through up until actual start of school, where my hopes would be briefly restored. But just lol. My actually uni experience turned out worse than I ever anticipated.
-My Twisted World Part Two
