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All parents have an essential goal when raising children (besides caring for and loving them that is) and that’ making sure their children grow up prepared to face the dangers they will encounter in the world. No matter how strong or comforting the web of protection a parent might create for her child, the fact is that separation is inevitable and one day, that child will have to face the world whether he or she is ready to or not. So, parents spend their time raising their children and repeating to them mantras for safety such as “Don’t talk to strangers”, “Don’t get into strangers’ cars”, or “Don’t take candy from someone you don’t know”. On the flip side, a parent can only do so much to prepare their child for the world’ dangers, but the most lasting and convincing lesson is personal experience.
I myself am a victim of this. My parents said the same things to me as I grew up to make sure I knew that while people should not be judged superficially, that didn’t mean that all people could be trusted off the bat. I was still told things to be wary of even up until my last few weeks at home before leaving for college and in fact found more voices to listen to about safety and awareness. As the only cousin in my extended family to move out of Los Angeles for college, all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents wanted to make sure I knew how to keep myself safe. So, I started to hear some new mantras in addition to the classics: “Don’t take drinks from strangers”, “Don’t accept drinks unless you know where they’ve been from”, “If you feel unsafe, leave”. Now, I liked to see myself as a pretty level headed person and a great decision maker (I was never into drugs, I didn’t drink, I wasn’t into the whole high school party scene unless it was a birthday celebration for a friend but there was never any contraband there) so, while I did take note of what they were saying, I thought it was useless because I would never do anything stupid anyway. That is, until I actually got to college.
It was the first week before classes started and everyone was abuzz with excitement for the new school year, this day specifically since it was Club Day so everyone was crowded around OPERS trying to see interesting things to join. I was with my two roommates and three other girls we had made friends with and we somehow had found ourselves in the sorority and fraternity aisles of the numerous groups of clubs clustered there. One sorority had stood out to us specifically because they were advertising a game event happening that very night with a brother fraternity of theirs. My group and I obviously knew that that was codename for a party but it seemed pretty safe since they admitted to there being alcohol but we wouldn’t have to drink any if we didn’t feel safe. So, we decided to go and join in on what we expected a cliche college party would be like, something out of the movies perhaps, to begin what we assumed a college experience should be. It didn’t take very long for me to find out I was wrong and even break my well known awareness rules I so confidently believed I would never break.
My group and I got ready and met with the sorority at the planned meeting area on campus. There were basic introductions with the sorority girls, everyone being polite and asking typical questions like “Where are you from?” and “What year are you?” In my mind the night would play out something like this: we would meet with the sorority, walk somewhere on campus where the party would be, feel the vibe of the event, and, if we didn’t like it, leave and walk back to my room. Very quickly, I realized that was not how it was going to turn out. About fifteen minutes into meeting different members of the sorority, they began breaking friend groups and forming new groups to load into cars for rides to the frat house off campus where the party was actually taking place. My friends all looked at each other, as if silently questioning if we were going to go through with this, and then compliantly got into the cars. That’ one rule broken. After what seemed like hours of driving (in reality probably about 15 minutes), we reached the scene of what I imagined would be a large scale party straight out of Project X, but was actually a normal house in a very quiet neighborhood with not much going on except for the lights on in the first floor. Inside, I found the rest of my friends with other girls huddled in the corner of the living room with the members of the frat lined nicely along the sides of the walls. It was quite obvious that there was a much larger ratio of males to females in this room and that this could potentially be a dangerous situation, but we stuck it out. Yet another rule broken. After a painfully awkward round of ice breakers, we moved onto the games they advertised which unsurprisingly turned out to be drinking games. The sorority girls began to pass out drinks from an unknown source out of sight in the backyard. Recalling their assurance that I didn’t have to drink if I didn’t want to, I politely declined. To my surprise, the cup was shoved into my hand and I was told I’d be the one to start the games. I wanted to leave because it really wasn’t my scene but if I did, I risked being made fun of by everyone in the room. I was already nervous at the beginning, but at this point I was beyond tense. I could tell my friends were as well because they started to pull away from the activities and were looking nervously at our designated driver who very conveniently had a drink in her hand. Seeing my friends so worried, though, finally convinced me that this was not something I wanted to be a part of. So, I talked to my group and we all agreed to leave. We got up, strolled up to our driver, told her we were ready to leave, and walked out the door, making a completely awkward mess out of their event. We eventually made it back to my room and sat in silence reflecting on the whole night. Finally, someone spoke up revealing that we had only been gone for exactly one hour. At that, everyone broke out into a fit of laughs and we couldn’t stop laughing at the memory of one of the longest nights of each of our lives.
Somehow, in the course of one night, I managed to break every single rule repeated to me since I was old enough to walk. Luckily, I was able to turn the night around and made a positive memory out of something that could have ended very differently. This just goes to show that you can be told something a million times and be given a warning that paints out the dangers of something so clearly, but sometimes only personal experience can really teach you the lessons worth learning.