In the month that we’ve been back at school, my roommate and I have not once, but twice, had the pleasure of being nearly run over and cat-called at by “That Car of Drunk Fairfield Boys.” It’s not an unfamiliar story: a packed car of Fairfield guys drives by two girls walking home to the Village after a night at the townhouse and yells something clever, in both of these instances, “SLUTS!”
Who is this mysterious car of drunk Fairfield boys? It perplexes me to no end. I’ve been at Fairfield for four years now and I have never met someone I really didn’t like; I cannot think of anyone that is truly mean and ignorant, or simply out to be a jerk.
Yet this keeps happening. I asked my guy friends for insight and they all pointed to the combination of anonymity and liquid courage, which leads to some guys yelling slurs out a car window to impress their friends and get a cheap laugh. I know its rhetorical to say, but really? Are we really still that immature?
It’s not that instances like this bother me because they are hurtful. Both times, my roommate and I were walking home in jeans and big coats (it is winter, after all), not to mention the fact that we’ve both been in serious relationships for the past two years. It would be wrong to call us a slut even if those things weren’t the case, but it does make the incident laughable to us, not hurtful. This stuff bothers me more because I just can’t understand it.
Once again I ask: who is sitting in “That Car of Drunk Fairfield Boys?” Fairfield is such a small school; it’s unlikely that we all haven’t met before. We could sit next to each other in an Economics class or play in the same intramural basketball league. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us has been your Orientation Leader or your FYM, organized a program in your residence hall, or student-taught in one of your classes.
We’re both pretty nice people that I bet you wouldn’t direct slurs at if you were sober or in public.
We’re your peers.
I just can’t wrap my mind around how things like this happen on our campus.
Even if you didn’t know or didn’t like us, presumably you have a mother, a sister, a friend that’s a girl, or a maybe even a girlfriend (less likely).
I would guess you wouldn’t want people calling them a slut or another derogatory word; in fact, you’d probably beat someone up who did.
So, next time you’re cruising home from the beach, think for a second and try out a new joke to impress the gang. And if your buddies are cat-calling out the window, drop them off at Fairfield Prep until they can behave like adults. It would be great if we could graduate without any more run-ins with “That Drunk Car of Fairfield Boys.”
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