Escaping Southern Conservatism

Last weekend was the first Homecoming I've attended since I graduated uni several years ago. Many people I hadn't seen since graduation, and a few of my older friends I hadn't seen since Homecoming my senior year. It was, in a word...

Amazing.

In three words?

Amazing, but surreal.

I've changed a lot since I was in school. I've grown more into my own person. I've always been fairly confident and not overly concerned with what people thought of me... but without even realizing it, I still allowed myself to be confined by southern conservatism. 
 

It didn't matter that I was smart and ambitious, with my adviser telling me that I should consider grad schools outside of the South, like Harvard or Princeton. Or if I wanted to go abroad again, I should apply to Cambridge or Oxford.

It didn't matter that despite a lack of popularity, I had a lot of friends. All the cliques in Delta Nu* liked me. I was close to so many women in Zeta Alpha Zeta* that I was often the only Delta Nu hanging out with like, half a dozen or more of them. Whenever I went to parties at Beta Omega Rho,* at least a dozen people hugged me in the first five minutes, and by the end of the night, I had probably had in-depth conversations with another dozen friends and chatted with about forty. I engaged in friendly debates on women's rights with my conservative Christian friends, usually arguing biblical & historical precedent for women's leadership in the Church. I endeavored to convince my feminist, gay, and/or otherwise liberal friends that not all Christians were crazy or hateful. I hung out with the student library staff so often that students thought I worked there. My French study group not only prepped for tests, midterms, and exams together, but we also ventured to WaHo late at night and played tag barefoot in the grass if class let out early.

It didn't matter that I had studied abroad nor that I was moving to France after graduation.

It didn't matter that I had never had a problem finding a date for my sorority functions or even setting up my sisters with my friends for formal each spring.

Everything about me was secondary to being perpetually single.

“I think you intimidate guys. I'm not saying you should dumb yourself down, but maybe guys would like you more if you weren't so obviously smart.”

“Guys can't tell if you like them or not because you're so bubbly. I'm not saying you should change your personality, but maybe guys would like you more if you didn't flirt so much.”

“I know you're more interested in France/books/theatre/etc, but guys want to talk about what they like. I'm not saying you should stop pursuing your own interests, but have you thought about learning to like football? Or at least faking it?”

“You need to stop getting stuck in the friend zone with guys. I'm not saying you shouldn't have guy friends, but maybe you should you shouldn't have so many.”

This is the sort of advice offered to me by my mother and by many of my friends. Because clearly something was wrong with me since I'd never had a boyfriend. I think my mom was secretly worried that I was a lesbian. Her daughter was an outspoken feminist who couldn't get a boyfriend and only wore make-up sporadically...

Don't worry, Mom, I'm not a lesbian... (But what if I were? What difference would it make?)

I might have hated the advice thrown my way, but I was just as caught up in turning my crush/best friend into my boyfriend as all my friends were.

It wasn't until I moved to France that I realized how amazing it can be to be single. You simply can't move to France for two years with a husband, or even a fiancé. You can do it with a boyfriend, but you miss out on so much of the experience. Most of my friends who started out with long-distance relationships broke up with their boyfriends. The few who managed to survive the distance spent more time skyping with their boyfriends than enjoying the local culture.

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't still carry a torch for one or two guys back home while I was in France... but I saw them as potential boyfriends in the future, not during my séjour abroad.

In June I finally finally FINALLY totally, completely, 100% got over Mark,* the aforementioned crush/best friend, for whom I'd had feelings on and off since we first met my junior year. I was excited to spend the summer single, in a new Midwestern city where I didn't know a soul. I was even more excited to move to the Northeast for a year and enjoy my singledom here.

For the first time, not only did I want to be single, but I was looking forward to being single for a set period of time.

And that is when I met the boyfriend.

I fought tooth and nail against being in a long-distance relationship. I wanted to be single, damn it! Spend time focusing on me! Explore my blossoming sexuality that I had suppressed for so long in the face of southern conservatism.

But I couldn't help it. I knew there was something wrong with me when I stopped wanting to make out with other people, a feeling I discovered after our first skype date, ten days after I had said good-bye to him my last night in the Midwest. We started talking more and more and more until I realized I was falling in love with him. A few weeks later, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Which brings us back to Homecoming. Of course, everyone is catching up and finding out what's changed and who's doing what. Most people asked me about four subjects. Living in France, living in the Northeast, interning with Delta Nu, and having my first boyfriend.

Guess which one garnered the most interest?

Apparently having a boyfriend for a week is WAY more interesting than working in France for two years or interning with your sorority for three months. (I'll admit it is a lot more interesting than living in the Northeast. Maybe if it didn't take so much time & money to get into the city, my life here would be more fascinating. But I digress).

I love talking about the boyfriend, so it's not like I was offended that everyone wanted to know all about him. But I also love talking about France and my sorority, and I was hoping to spend more time talking about them.

I realize that it's easy for me to say all of this since I have a boyfriend. But I would like to remind you that I am in my TWENTIES and am just now dating my very first boyfriend.

There is SO much more to life than having a significant other. Screw getting a ring by spring. Yeah, a candle pass is nice, but you know what else is nice? Seeing the world. Meeting new people. Living outside your comfort zone. Backpacking across France all alone and befriending the people you meet in your hostels. Being free to make mistakes and to learn from them.

Figuring out who you are, as an individual.

I'm going to do something I haven't before. I'm going to end with a poem I wrote my senior year. I hope you like it, but if you don't... Well, your opinion will never stop me from writing or expressing myself.

Here to Stay


I'm a flirt, not a slut
And I'm tired of being judged
Don't act like you know
What's going on inside my heart


I am who I am
A walking contradiction
Love being in my own skin
But you hate it


Are my breasts too big?
Do I laugh too often?
Do you find it a problem
That I'm nice to everyone?


If you tell me to change
I'll laugh in your face
I am who I am
And I'm here to stay


*As always, not their real names. It took me awhile to find fake sorority and fraternity names I liked from movies.

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