Unknowingly Changed - Tumblr Posts
College is Transformative - Part I
It was a bright summer morning, but even though I’d only been outside for two hours at the most, my pale body was already baking in the August sun. My job for my college newspaper required me to travel through the football stadium and its parking lot with my camera to document the several forms of student engagement found during these big games. Given that I was a rather thin and reserved Engineering student who preferred playing video games than watching sports, I didn’t frequent these events too much, which made this experience feel even more foreign to me. Thinking back to how I was told about my assignment, I really begin to regret not putting up more of a fight to get someone else to take these pictures. But my classmate and the newspaper editor, Bridget, has too much power over me. “Matthew, I know that you’re not the sporty type, but I literally have no one else! This is a big game for the university, so it would be insane not to have any documentation of it. I promise I’ll make it up to you another time!” She pleaded, her sadness and dependency on me made it impossible to resist. I had an obvious crush on her, which made me like putty in her hands. Looking back with anger, I realize that she definitely took advantage of my crush given that she knew how much I hated sports.
Trying to make the most of such an early starting time, I used the first two hours prior to kickoff to get acquainted with the layout of the stadium and snap a few pictures of the various enthusiastic yet already-drunk patrons tailgating. I rolled my eyes at the various shirtless men covered in paint matching our school colors. “Yeah, this whole student pride aspect of this cover story is such bullshit” I thought to myself. “This is just an easy excuse for dumb jocks to show off their bulging bodies and get wasted with the various sorority girls wrapped tightly around their biceps…” I exhaled in annoyance and continued to travel across the hot pavement to take more photos.
After walking through a few rows and documenting the celebration, I finally came across some familiar faces in the form of some classmates. Although they were part of a fraternity, they were surprisingly nice to me, especially this dude named Tanner. We had taken a few classes together since he was also an Engineering major and he always seemed really cool. Although, I do think that he also kind of has some sort of crush on me given how he’s looked at me so intently at times. I don’t find guys attractive, but I will say that it was quite the confidence boost to think at least someone found me attractive. I walk up to them and introduce myself. “Hey there, I’m Matthew from the school paper. Do you mind if I take some pictures of your tailgate?”, I say, which caused Tanner to flash a smile towards me. “Sure thing man, but there’s one condition: you have to shotgun a beer with us.” I look at him with a look of discomfort, which he immediately sees. “Hey, it’s all good man. It’s just one beer, I promise you won’t get in trouble or anything. I’ll do one with you if that makes you feel better.” He says as he flashes his pearly white smile once again towards me. Suddenly feeling somewhat calmed, I shake my head in approval, which makes him hoot and holler in happiness.
Tanner turns away and reaches into a cooler to search for some cold beers while I take some photos of the other tailgaters in his area. Before long, he appears next to me with two ice cold beers. “You ready?” He asks. I nod in agreement as he continues speaking. “This beer is quite special, it’s a special frat recipe that I came up with actually”, he continues with a wink. After he says that, it’s clear that he’s trying to flirt with me in some kind of way. Before I can think about it much longer, he brings his beer up closer and I follow suit. He quickly whips out a pocket knife and pokes a hole in both cans. “Drink now!” he cries, which I quickly do as I chug down his homemade beer. I’m not an avid drinker, but there’s definitely something strange tasting about his beer. At first it seemed fine, but I began to notice some strange aftertaste the more I chugged. Looking over to Tanner, he finishes chugging his beer and turns to me and flashes a thumbs up. “You’ve got this man, you’ve got to drink it all!” I hear him yell as his cries of encouragement somehow manage to get me to completely down the entire can. I quickly finish and drop the can as I gasp for air. While I get reacquainted with the idea of breathing, Tanner quickly comes up to me and snaps a quick selfie on his phone. “Whew, that was… definitely something” I say, still a bit confused why I even agreed to do it. Tanner responds with “Hell yeah, it was awesome bro!” and hands me his phone, where I take a look at the photo.
While looking at the photo, I stifle a laugh at the sight of the photo. In it, I look completely out of place, as if I was somehow photoshopped into it. Standing next to Tanner, a blond 5’11” jock, was a tiny pale nerd, which made it look like I somehow accidentally stumbled into frame if it hadn’t been for the beer can up to my lips. Tanner is a blond fairly muscular dude with tanned skin. His blue eyes are the best part of his face, as they perfectly display his friendliness and approachability. But for some unknown reason, he almost always covers his eyes with various pairs of sunglasses, even while inside. However, that doesn’t stop people from approaching him, which only goes to be a testament to his innate sociability.
On the flipside, my face screams incredibly average, as my widely spaced brown eyes and thin eyebrows only further display my pasty complexion. That would be the main focal point on my face if not for the huge bulbous nose that was crookedly bent time and time again from my various accidental injuries from school-enforced sports activities. Even my hair is a display of my plainness, as my dark brown hair lies flat and unable to be styled no matter how hard I try. Finally, instead of being shirtless like Tanner, I’m clothed in a grey shirt and some khaki shorts.
My focus on the photo is broken as I hear Tanner begin speaking once more. “You did great man! I didn’t expect you to chug that all the way through. If only you were a jock like me, we could do this all the time!” He said with a chuckle. I flashed a smile towards him and begin to speak. “Haha, yeah I’m sure we’d have some great times. If only that was possible!” I say, eager to just agree so I can get out of this conversation. As I talk to Tanner, I suddenly feel this incredibly radiating heat spread all over my body. Fearing that I was somehow getting dehydrated or some kind of heat stroke, I quickly ended the conversation. “Hey, I’m gonna keep walking around and head inside to take some pictures. It was great catching up though!” I say, before quickly walking away and deciding the best course of action would be to head inside the stadium to get some photos of the student section and possibly a drink of water.
I head up to the admission gate and show my journalism badge, where they quickly verify my identity and let me enter the packed stadium. Walking around, the place is in a state of complete pandemonium as drunk students bob and weave through the various lines in the concessions area. Trying to make the best of the situation, I laugh and start taking pictures displaying the students’ stupidity to showcase the “real” college experience like Bridget said she wanted.
As I’m taking my photos, I’m suddenly overcome with an intense pressure in my crotch. “Damn, that beer went through me fast” I think to myself, unsure how I could have suddenly digested that beer so fast given that I hadn’t drunk anything else this morning except for milk with my cereal. Deciding to try and ignore the sensation, I head up to the student section to start taking pictures of the various decorated students. However, this only lasts for a few minutes before the pressure exponentially grows to the point of heat radiating now solely from my crotch. I quickly run down the stairs and frantically search for a sign leading to a bathroom. Finally finding a sign pointing to a bathroom, I rush inside and slam the door shut.
Unable to hold my urine much longer, I run to the urinal and get my pants undone just in time to prevent me pissing my pants. I sigh in relief as I relieve myself and begin to look around the somehow deserted bathroom. “That’s weird, I would have expected the bathrooms to have long lines” I thought to myself as I continued looking until I turned to my left to face a wall-length mirror. “Oh hey, I didn’t see you there” I say, shocked at the pure size of that beast of a man. He was so big in fact, that I couldn’t even see myself in the mirror. Looking up and down and to the sides, I’m insanely confused by my inability to show up in the mirror even though I’m looking at it. “Hey man, could you move for a second?” I say, before clearing at my throat and putting my hand to my throat due to the random gritty tone my voice had. However, my confusion only grows as I watch the brutish jock of a man mouth the same words and do the same movements. My worry is further justified when I look intensely yet confused at the mirror once more and realize that he (or me?) is wearing the same clothes I was wearing...
Read Part II Here
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