A Letter To My Freshman Self: I Hate You

Dear Jake,

I was going to begin with a pleasant introduction, but you know what? You don’t deserve it. Let me explain. I am you five years in the future. Right now, you are a six-foo- tall, one-hundred and ninety-five pound douchebag. You are coming off a high school experience that involved having four friends (probably a gross overestimate), being a varsity lacrosse captain, and taking like ten AP classes. You think you are a big shot, but you are quite the opposite. You are a nerd virgin with an overinflated sense of self-worth. Let’s talk about how the year is going to go for you.

You would like to think that you are not a messy person, but just take a second and look around your room. Your dorm is a shithole and you are a filthy garbage person. Oh, have you gotten sick yet? That will happen a lot. Thirteen times in total, if I recall correctly. The throat infection will be no fun, but you will get to vomit in the street in front of passing traffic. Points for distance! Oh, after you tear your ACL for the second time (yeah, sorry about that), you will sell all of your painkillers to a kid that will eventually end up in rehab. Don’t feel bad at that, he had it coming.

Every time your parents show up to meet for lunch on the weekends, you will be late because you were out getting plastered with your bros the night before. Reeking of alcohol, you will attempt to deny that you did anything the night before. Your parents will not believe you and you will leave brunch to vomit in the bathroom. This will go on for several months. They will slowly stop giving you money and cut you off entirely. Get a job.

If I looked at the contents of your fridge right now, there would either be one of two things in it – Natty Light or Aristocrat vodka. Good for you! You are finding out that you are a garbage disposal for alcohol. You will earn every hangover you get, like a true idiot. All of those times you pass out at 9:15 PM after hurling a stack of newspapers at someone’s face will become the stuff of legend. Many of these things will still be brought up regularly five years from now. I suspect that much of it will make it into your (our?) wedding.

Eventually, you will start dating a girl WAY too hot for you. That relationship will end in flames because you are the farthest thing from mature in the world. As much as you try and resist, for the months after said breakup you will send her many MANY drunk text messages late at night. But there is a good in this – you will begin to see a pattern. Every girl that has the displeasure of being in your company (and there won’t be many, so enjoy it) for an extended period of time will (for some godforsaken reason) be extremely attractive. I’m five years ahead of you and I can’t explain this phenomenon.

Considering that you had like mmmmm 27? hours of college credit from the AP classes you took, you might be already noticing that you made a dumb decision taking calculus and physics your first semester. That mile walk to Cal II in the morning kinda blows doesn’t it? You would think some crips messed with your transcript because it had C C C C C all over it. Hard classes fresh out of the gate was a dumb mistake. Your GPA is still suffering from this decision so you have that to look forward to as well.

Overall, you will not learn anything of value until about your senior year. Thousands of beers and dozens of girls horrified by your actions will only add fuel to the dumpster fire that you are right now. Classes will be boring and you will get shit on continually by your professors. Embrace it.

Until you do come to your senses, have fun, beandick.