Aaron W. Voyles reminisces about the impact of debauchery on his freshman hall.
—
One weekend one of the guys on the hall threw up all over the lobby. We felt bad about it, in that way where we weren’t going to do anything in response, so we laid some paper towels across it and a sign for our housekeeper that said, “Vomit. Sorry.”
Another weekend a guy named Greg stabbed Ryan in the arm. They were having an argument about whether or not Ryan should be drinking anymore. When Ryan went for the bottle for booze, Greg stabbed him with a knife. We were all really into knives because of some Cutlery Corner infomercials we had seen on late night television.
One week our Resident Assistant was actually there on the hall with us. A few of the guys convinced him to hang out with them and have a few beers while playing video games. They made sure to snap a picture in case he ever got them in trouble and they needed it.
Every week a guy from the hall would invite people out to the woods to smoke pot. I was invited one time, but since I declined I wasn’t invited again. When one of the guys was busted for smoking pot in his room, I was accused of being a NARC. They stopped smoking in the woods and started smoking pot on the front steps of the building under the belief that no officer would think anyone would be that stupid and therefore wouldn’t catch on to it.
◊♦◊
This may be a good time in the article to mention that this was also the honors residence hall. We lovingly called it “ho house” proving that our respect and understanding for women were no match for our own amusement and wit. We didn’t really have an RA that year. Our RA had taken the job because his girlfriend was an RA and when they broke up, his attention to the job waned.
Our behavior maybe was in part because of our RA. Kurt Lewin (1936) provided an equation for human behavior suggesting that behavior is a function of the interaction between a person and their environment. To put that into simpler terms, think about how a person may act differently with their grandparents at church than when out at a football game with friends. The environment and company matter.
I both buy into the idea that our RA’s absence matter and I don’t. Yes, I was more careful with my own behavior when our RA told us at our first floor meeting that there were strict punishments for drinking. And yes, after the one event he took us to (dinner at Hooters) and then the absence of him, my behavior and the behavior of our hall in general deteriorated.
But there’s more to a situation than an RA that leads to “Vomit. Sorry.” Is it boys will be boys and the understanding of college? I knew more than one student whose parents expected them to drink in college and even encouraged experimentation that would violate laws or school policies.
An engendered idea that men should and will do these types of things creates a certain inevitability of it. Who doesn’t love telling stories about how crazy they were in college? Heck, I just spent four paragraphs doing it at the beginning of this story.
Is it instead a need to build up walls of masculinity? My mom wanted me in the honors residence hall. She thought I’d meet better people. She thought it would be a safer, more studious environment compared to when my brother had people throwing up from alcohol outside his room at his university. So why was the honors hall a bad one?
Perhaps the mocking of the name, said as “ho house” instead of with pride for honors is a wall of masculine compensation. Perhaps the drinking, the debauchery, the poor behavior are other walls. We do hear kids being teased for being the smartest kid in the classroom, and let’s face it, we were those kids growing up. Maybe this combination of knives, booze, and the sort is a response to feel more like a normal college male, to be more masculine.
◊♦◊
For men, being a product of all of these phenomena, our environmental ethos, our socialization, and our need to compensate can end up limiting men’s success in college. I can’t help but think if I had gotten a different RA who had enforced policy and provided positive opportunities for us to connect to one another, maybe we would not have devolved to connect as we did. We were close as a hall, yes, but not close in very healthy ways. As a freshman, I didn’t feel as though I knew any other avenues to connect with others on my own.
It’s important to consider how these phenomena continue to affect boys and men as they grow up. As men, we are cocktails created by how we are stirred with the ingredients for our environment. Too much sour, too much sweet, and it’s off-putting. How we construct this cocktail should mature as we do.
As parents and mentors, we have to move past creating glory days in college and to providing support for our men so that they feel they have the ability to move past where they are. Lewin (1936) is right in that we are products of our own environment, but we are also products of our own initiative. What stopped me from just asking for a room change? It wasn’t my RA, which is why our personal comfort with who we are as gendered beings is just as important as any blame we might place on our surroundings. Plus, I had a pretty cool roommate.
Lewin, K. (1936). Principles of topological psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ditching the Dunce Cap is a weekly Friday column from Aaron W. Voyles on the University of Texas-Austin. He welcomes your comments.
—Photo Brian Rosner/Flickr
Also in Ditching the Dunce Cap:
Examining the Axe Effect
When Will You Grab Your Saw?
Do You Know the Mega-Dump?
If the Shoe Fits, Cheat