“In Retrospect” will be a semi-regular series of previously written, unpublished blog musings. I’m starting with this one from a year ago today, which discusses what is probably still my favorite article written about the website:

“I was sitting in my dorm room on Saturday night when all logic, reason, and prior history suggested that I should have been flying out the door in a miniskirt and stilettos. I instead spent the night reading an article in The Yale Herald about the Ivy League blog trend. I was one of the subjects, and I am still trying to process the words used to describe my blog. For the first time since I started this website, I feel like an outsider gets it.

Cally writes:

No college experience is diametrically opposed to any other in its difficulty, isolation, community, laziness, or degree of personal fulfillment. After all, contrary to the sensationalist mantras on the seat of so many sweatpants across the Northeast, the opposite of Yale is not Harvard. Students at elite academic institutions are not only products of their rarified environments; in other words, Princetonian ‘masters of the universe,’ like college students everywhere, bring to New Jersey cultural, social, and economic baggage that four years of even the swankiest dorm-living cannot completely unpack…

She understands in a way that I don’t think most people do. It is almost uncanny how spot-on she is in her interpretation of my position (read the rest of the article). I can’t speak for IvyGate or IvyLeak, for whom self-deprecation and snark is the point. The former say, ‘The last thing people want to read is a sincere blog about the Ivy League.’ But for me at least, if there’s anything I want to accomplish with this blog, it’s sincerity. This was never about self-promotion, never about being outrageous for its own sake.”

– October 18, 2006

I was going through my phone the other night and I determined that my entire life can be summed up as one long series of text messages from Adia. This is completely unrelated to what this entry is about.

I wrote on my private blog yesterday (yes, I do have another) that I’ve had to make a series of changes this year in order to adjust to the unexpected consequences of Sex and the Ivy: “It’s not even about the public scrutiny and recognition and inability to make new friends or meet new people. It is about old friends and their scrutiny and my attempts to make a space for myself that is my own. The past semester has been about drawing the line between public and private, narrowing the list of people in my life to a handful I want to invest in, and separating my professional endeavors from my college existence.”

I’ve explained this to several people already but I think it’s important to get it down into words: I don’t want to make new friends, I don’t like strangers, and I never want to date another guy who knows about my blog. It almost sounds cold but the handful of people (and I really do mean handful) who I have become better acquainted with this year are almost all friends of existing friends. It’s hard to trust people’s intentions unless you have others vouching for them. Frankly, I’m not interested in befriending or dating someone who finds me intriguing merely because I write a controversial sex blog. Obviously, it’s a different story with fellow writers and bloggers, but when it comes to typical peer interaction, “What’s Kyle’s real identity?” should not be on the top of the get-to-know-you list. It almost makes me wonder if I was considered at all interesting before I started writing this thing.

Along the same lines, I’ve found myself becoming much more private even with my close friends. It doesn’t mean that I’m shutting off in the slightest. But for someone with such little privacy as it is, it’s not asking much to be left alone when I want to be. I’m tired of being interrogated every time a new male figure emerges in my life or someone comes over to hang out. Sometimes, it’s not even about my privacy but the other party’s. Living in such close quarters with five other girls last semester was extremely stifling. Between my blockmates, friends, and readers, I had almost nothing that was left to myself. My romantic turmoil, depression, insecurities — all of it played out in the public sphere. I felt anxious all the time, could barely focus on my work, and finally, pulled away violently from everyone. Months later, the solution, as it turns out, is to actually not tell everyone everything. Surprise surprise.

Another change: I’m less patient nowadays. I’m remarkably blessed to have such solid friends in my life and I’m not exactly in need of extra company. This isn’t the first day of freshman year. I have no patience for dealing with shitty personalities. Being thrust into the spotlight has made it spectacularly clear that it’s quality, not quantity, I should be looking for in terms of friends and that in order to get to the few good ones, there’s a lot of judgmental, superficial assholes to weed through. I spent the better part of freshman year putting up with undeserved criticism and general bitchiness. I get enough of that bullshit from Sex and the Ivy critics; I don’t need it in my day-to-day life. Quite honestly, if you’re not going to get with the program, then get the fuck out.

I forgave two people recently. One simply disappeared from my life after an unexpected personal crisis; the other drifted away slowly but deliberately. I felt rejected by both at the time and never really understood what happened. But once I heard their respective explanations, I felt compelled to forgive them. The former was someone who treated me with respect right up until disappearing without a trace. The latter was responsible for my making it through the college transition. There is something to be said for being human, making mistakes, owning up to them, and apologizing. Sometimes, “sorry” is just about enough. I’m still waiting for a “sorry” from more than one party.

In sex-related news, I have been off of birth control for two weeks and I’m seriously considering just going without it indefinitely. I am having such a difficult time with the mere conception of a hookup, much more sex, that I don’t see the purpose in taking the Pill. Of course, I can’t foresee the future and who knows what a summer in New York will hold. Besides, prior history (i.e. Summer Guy) has demonstrated that relationships occur when least expected. Nonetheless, I am determined to stay abstinent and I know that I won’t have sex using only a condom. I have only had bad experiences with relying on one form of protection (had to resort to Plan B with both Summer Guy and Aidan) so third time is definitely not the charm. If I’m not popping the pill, no one’s popping the regrown cherry.

After a discussion about boredatlamont.com over dinner at Tanjore, Adia sent me the following message via Facebook …

Nov 20, 2006 at 8:22 pm

From: ***** *********
To: Lena Chen
Subject: teehee
Message: http://www.boredatlamont.com/?m=search&query=lena
apparently you discovered micronesia, let the dogs out, and circumcised a canadian. all in a day’s work!

Since I am a fan of pointless attention-whoring lists, here are related gems from boredatlamont.com:

i heard lena chen is the inspiration for anchorman
lena chen helped me with my groceries once
lena chen is like santa claus she comes once a year
lena chen let the dogs out
Lena Chen discovered micronesia
lena chen circumnavigated the world
lena chen can’t talk about fight club but she can talk about her menstrual cycle
lena chen visited the virgin islands they are the whore islands
god you people are making lena chen into the new chuck norris
Lena Chen insipired me to create a new anal sex position
lena chen had sex with chuck norris and survived to blog about it
lena chen is going to blog about this in 15 minutes

And I don’t even consider being underneath my covers at 3am, sane and sober, a complete tragedy. Usually, I’d have to be a drunk mess before declaring the evening over. But it’s too much work to have fun at this school and tonight I don’t have the energy. As I told JZ earlier on the phone, “I’m cold and underage.” That rules out waiting outside final club doors or hitting up a bar for overpriced, oversweetened drinks. Besides, Terra and I have blown our pride, livers, and budgets this past week. It’s time for damage control.

It’s funny that I find myself more together this weekend than I have in a long time. It’s the big Harvard-Yale football game tomorrow, and tonight was supposed to be fairly ridiculous, a night when gals like me push their limits beyond limits. But last year, I was surprisingly sober as well. I didn’t even drink a drop at the tailgate. I guess we’ll see how well I hold up tomorrow, but I get the feeling that I’ll remain cognizant and even responsible (well, maybe …)

Last night, a guy I’ve been spending time with (sweet, but fairly clueless) kicked me out of his room at 3am in the middle of the biggest storm Cambridge has seen this autumn. His reasoning? “If you stay, I’m not going to be able to fall asleep, and I have a third-round interview tomorrow.” I thought I had gotten used to the extent of this school’s ridiculousness, but that I just couldn’t stomach. Only at Harvard.

Tonight, I hit up Mather with Allie, Quincy with Adia, and Winthrop with HN. In between, I managed to run into four guys I slept with (at least). If this evening had a catchphrase, it’d be, “Shit. I think I fucked him.” I really need to transfer schools.

Also notable was hearing two Winthrop sophs yell my name while HN and I were walking down Mill Street. Typically when I fly solo, I get approached once or twice a night about my blog, and I write off these incidents as annoying occurrences. Not the case here. Not only was I fielding inquiries with HN in tow, but the kids who stopped me were girls. Plus, they acknowledged quite sweetly that they knew I didn’t like being approached. Chick fans are so rare and are definitely preferable to the sweaty, towering men who give off stalker vibes. Hyper, endearingly fanatic girls are just different. You’ve got to stop for them, even if it’s fucking freezing and you’re reconsidering your (lack of) wardrobe decision. I think HN was fairly bewildered, but it just goes to show that I do not make up this whole blog-intruding-on-life stuff.

Today’s epiphany in therapy: I exhibit impulsive behavior. I am self-destructive. I overindulge in sex, shopping, and food to distract from life’s problems. Basically, I’m just a big fucking mess. Let’s hope I get diagnosed with something soon so I can refer to an actual illness instead of vaguely saying, “I have mental issues.” Anyway, my therapist is right on mark with everything, but then again, I could probably give myself therapy. I feel like every conversation I have about my issues only leads to some new epiphany. Every week, I go into UHS with so many self-revelations that her job must be pretty damn easy.

As far as over-indulgence goes: tonight, Terra and I had a $100 dinner at Om. I also bought a case of Smirnoff Ice. An entire case. That’s lasting until next semester. Last Monday, I snagged red stilettos and purchased brown flats. They constituted the last part of my $650 shopping spree.

I know that flats are uncharacteristic of me, but I needed something appropriate for class. These are my new faves next to the purple BCBG stilettos. I probably like my collection of shoes more than any boy I’ve ever slept with. Ralph and Max are the most dependable men I know.