Dear Friends,
When is the college try going to go out of style? Let’s recap from the urban dictionary for those of you who aren’t familiar with lazy, easily discouraged people/majors/projects that mimic that of a college student’s intent.
College Try: Giving something your best shot, even if you aren’t sure how to do it.
Attempting the “old college try” always results in uncontrolled rage and frustration rather than learning. This condition is only augmented by trying to find help in a real resource other than what you know.
Unfortunately for dating, there is no textbook to fall back on. Men who give it the old college try just end up failing because whatever default they have is ineffective. Obviously. Or else 90 percent of Manhattan wouldn’t be single. I don’t consider sleeping with someone to be a success, as a sidenote- that just skews the data that proves that giving someone the old college try is about real things that could be written about, not things to hoping to debut in a Harlequin Romance novel or the last ten pages of Cosmopolitan (although you know I love that kind of thing).
Why is it that I’m still witnessing the college try well after college? I graduated, universe. Did ya hear me? My ex boyfriend was the epitome of the college try and so was his mother. She was more like the college fail and for more reasons than the fact that she did not attend one. (I woke up on the nasty side of the bed today). I would like an adult try, or at least a masters try? Grad school try? I’m going for the MED SCHOOL try but I’d take business school too. Something, ANYTHING is better than the college try. College was the easiest thing I’ve yet to do in my life, why do people think defaulting to the effort you exerted in four years of keg stands and late nights is going to get you anywhere in adulthood? I thought we were the generation of master degrees because of the terrible economy. So can I get a more academic amount of effort please?
This affects me mostly in dating because in all other lots in life, I have the control so I can make sure that nothing I do stops at college-par. I wrote a book in six months – that was an adult try, if I do say so myself. I moved to New York City on my own with no job and no financial backing, also an adult try. I worked through issues of abandonment and fear of change because of my mother’s ill-fated death on my own – I would give that work at least a masters try. When I meet someone new, I give it a grad school application try, at bare minimum. Why? Because I don’t hang out with people who I don’t feel at least a little passionately about – male or female. I also know how many mistakes I made in college, when I thought I was trying and realize that as an adult, it takes a hell of a lot more than that. Others would say – this is what being a man or a woman is. You realize you weren’t in other realms of life and now for whatever reason, you are ready, and by virtue of that you put more of yourself into things than a college try. When you find the person you feel like calling back and not blowing off, and apologize for more reasons than because you want to feel exonerated of silly guilt you created, hang onto them please. Don’t give them a college try. Even if little bumps come up. I basically had the social equivalent to a pimple last week, and unfortunately for Mr. Promises who was on the other end of the phone, that zit is still wide open. I basically handed him some cream and said, “Please apply liberally and say sorry.” It went way over his head. He could have zapped it overnight but instead, he made the problem area bigger by being unreliable. Even when you think you’re getting to know someone. Even when you take it slow. Even when you don’t sleep with them. There is always acne and this time, it is so very visible. Maybe I should whip out the pimple cream I used in the dorms and give him a taste of his own college try-medicine. I’m always on my team, and I was on his team, but I got tired of playing for both leagues. Nobody likes a traitor.
Kisses,
Jessica
