Walks of shame (part 1)

The first time I heard the phrase “walk of shame” I was 21 and it was a couple of months after I had moved to the USA for grad school. Unlike any normal 21 year old I had no clue what it meant. The occasion was not helping either. It was around 9 am on a Sunday morning and I had just spent the night at my friend’s house. The reason was that we had gone out the night before, my friend got completely wasted and started throwing up before we even left the bar. I, being the good friend, decided to stay at her place, and actually spent the night on her floor, by her bed, bringing her clean plastic bags to throw up or holding her hair back while she was doing that. Looking back at that night, I believe that I definitely deserved the “best friend” award. I mean it takes real dedication to hold someone’s hair back while they are throwing up. No one should ever need do that…unless you are married to them, in which case there should be a law regulating this! So, back to my point. Since that was not a planned sleepover I had no pajamas with me. My friend’s roommate who was closer to my size than my friend (who was wearing a 0 – is that even an actual size?) gave me sweatpants and a t-shirt. The next morning while I was getting ready to go back to my apartment, in the borrowed sweatpants since there was no way I was going to put back on jeans and heels, my friend informed me while giggling that it will look like “a walk of shame.” And this is how I learned the phrase. I stared at her and said in my Greek accent “I don’t know what that means” and she proceeded to enlighten me. So, now I knew. Of course, right then I promised to myself to never get in a “walk of shame” situation ever again! Imagine the embarrassment! Little did I know!

Fast-forward three years. Still at the same place, still a graduate student. There was some progress regarding my love life but since I have a talent in getting into inconvenient and awkward or disastrous relationships (right now I believe I am cursed) I was in a long distance relationship. My then boyfriend was living not only in another country but also in another continent, with a six-hour time difference and all. The only way that that relationship could have been more long-distance-y was if he was an astronaut and on a mission in space. Seriously! Of course there were no occasions of any walks of shame! In the happy occasions that we actually got to see each other we stayed in the same place.

One night, I met with my friends at the dive bar that we used to hang out (unfortunately about a year after that we decided that we were too good for it!). There is no need to describe the amount of drinking that took place not only that time but every time we went to that place. Just imagine a group of graduate students on a Friday evening at a bar that sells extremely cheap beer – in pitchers and plastic cups! Chances are they will get wasted. Around midnight most of the people started heading back home. One of my good friends, a (hot) guy this time, and I decided, probably because we were more intoxicated than anyone else, to stay until the bar closed. And so we did. We continued drinking until 3 am when they basically kicked us out. So at that point we are both standing (or trying to stand) outside the bar and I’m demanding that my friend should walk me home. After some debating, which made no sense because drunk people cannot really get into a debate, we both ended up going back to his place. Let me just repeat here that I was in a relationship and he was sort of involved with someone. Both cases long distance. Nothing happened though! In fact, I slept in his bed (after I made sure there were clean sheets) and he slept on the couch. I know it sounds weird and I’m not pretending that I didn’t think about…stuff…. But, for whatever reason and despite our intoxicated state nothing happened! Back to the point. As before, this was not a planned sleepover. I was wearing jeans and heels. My friend, being a gentleman, gave me clean sweatpants and a t-shirt. And I put them on, grateful that I didn’t have to sleep in my jeans. But I definitely look hilarious in them. My friend is 6.2 and he is a big guy (he used to play football before grad school…then the road to the Ph.D took over that). Imagine me, 5.5 and half his size, wearing his clothes. They were practically falling off. When I wanted to use the bathroom I had to hold the sweatpants at the waist so that they would not end up at my ankles in front of my friend. But you know, better than jeans, and they were clean!

So I slept and didn’t wake up until early the next day because my phone kept beeping. First it was my mom who could not find me online and assumed that I had died. Then it was my roommate who had realized that I hadn’t gone home the night before and was ready to call the police. After I texted back my parents and informed them that I was safe and definitely not dead (just hangover) I woke up my friend who drove me home. Of course I was still wearing his clothes and I looked ridiculous the least! Being hangover does not really make you look fresh and pretty. So I arrive at my apartment, open the door and my roommate is seating at her desk, right by door. And all of sudden I’m realizing how I look. I mean I’m wearing a man’s clothes and I did not spent the night at home. Obviously I must have had a wild night! So I open my mouth and tell my friend where I was and I realize that I’m actually making it worse not only because my friend knows the guy but because she also knows that I think he is hot! Once I realized that what I was saying did not sound particularly innocent and that my appearance was not really helping I started repeating that nothing happened, etc. Who knows if she ever believed me! I would definitely not believe me! So, I went straight to bed and I promised to myself that the next time I would look like I was doing a walk of shame there would actually be some action involved! If people are going to think that you are getting some…you might as well do!  

To be continued….