Tales from the Trenches Tuesday

Since I was out of the office yesterday, I have literally forgotten it is Tuesday about 12 times today. And after I was all “OMG, it’s BRITNEY on GLEE tonight!!!” it hit me this afternoon that it also means another installment of Tales from the Trenches. And I have rallied and posted for you so I wouldn't let you all down. You're welcome, folks.

I was thinking that I should go back to another college story, since I don’t know if that well will ever run dry. And also in honor of my friend who came down to help celebrate my birthday this weekend, since it was her fault I got into this particular situation.

My senior year of college, one of my very best friends and pledge sisters was dating a guy in the fraternity across the street from our sorority house. I think we all had our phases of wondering how well they were going to fare as a couple. He was a fun guy, but to me they were just so different from one another. But hey, we all date people that aren’t necessarily a good "fit" for us. She was just smart enough to get most of it out of her system in college. While some geniouses like myself continue to date enough losers, creeps and weirdos to write a blog posting about it once a week.

Anywho, as sorority sisters often do, they always want to set up other girls from the chapter with the other guys from that fraternity. Maybe so we could all do the walk of shame home together in the morning and count it as a “sisterhood event”, I don’t know. It just always seems like such a novel idea. And my friend was no exception.

She kept dragging me out when she knew her guy would be out and kept talking up his roommate, MNINM. There was nothing wrong with this guy. I just don’t think I was particularly interested in MNINM. It was close to graduation and I was honestly more focused on just having as much fun as possible in the shortest span of time.

But one night we all ended up back in their room at the fraternity house after the bar closed. As a side note, thank GOD I rarely saw a fraternity house on my campus (a) sober or (b) in the light of day. Because they are dark, dirty and seriously scary places to be in the (a) or (b) scenario. So we are back in the room and I am sure someone thought it a bright idea to keep drinking. At some point my friend and her guy retired to the bottom bunk (I am pretty sure it was tented off with a sheet for ultra-privacy) and I was left chatting it up with MNINM.

I don’t recall all of the specifics (because that was many years ago) but I do remember I thought maybe I could talk this guy to sleep and then I could just go home and it would all be a non-issue.

"So, M – where are you from originally?"

"Oh cool, M. How many brothers and sisters do you have?"

"Interesting – what classes are you taking this semester, M?"

On and on, I kept asking questions. Surely this dude had to be sick of me now, right? No, he wasn’t. Not only was he not deterred by my incessant questioning, he would pre-empt each of his responses by saying

“um…My Name Is Not Matt.”

I kept calling him by THE WRONG NAME. And he let me. He kept correcting me, but I paid no mind at all and just kept on calling him by the wrong name. Frustrated, I went to my last possible move of suddenly remembering, “Oh wait I have a boyfriend!” and hightailing it out of there. God I was so slick in college, making up fake boyfriends. Lesson learned that even if you call someone by the wrong name, you can still fall back on that failsafe line about an imaginary boyfriend to get your ass out of almost any situation.