College

Right, so this one is not football related, as the title would indicate. I've had two recent experiences with young women that were contrasting, and it was a bit of a mind bender comparing the two.

First one was at Walmart. This UVA student, who it turns out is from Vegas, asked me to help her put something heavy in her car. Now, this isn't something that happens often, as firstly I usually avoid stores when hella people are going to be there, and secondly college students often stick to their little groups or are loners. I'd know, as that was my experience at UVA. Anyways, the point here is we got to talking and it was cool to hear her perspective on things. One was why come to this university, of all places. Her reasoning was she wanted to go into politics, and DC is close, and UVA is a good school or whatever. Personally, I detest politics, but I get why someone would want to go into that. Another thing that I'll add now that wasn't true with the younger girl was that at 21, soon to be 22, she was more mature and knew what she wanted to do in life, at least in theory. At that age, I had ruled a few options out, but didn't really know what I wanted. I know a few other people, most of whom went to UVA, who are in the position I was when I graduated. This is to say it's not uncommon for students to still have no idea what they'll do to make ends meet once college ends.

Latest conversation, which was what led me to write this, was random as well. This time I was in a park, as it was a sunny day, and I see this girl sitting on a bench. To kinda preface this, I'd been riding around in my vehicle trying to decide what I wanted to do, and saw this girl walking in one direction. Turns out she was staying at the hotel close to the park, which is why she was where she was. Anyways, I rode around some more, came back, and saw her walking the other direction. I parked at the local park, did my thing, and eventually saw her sitting down. Unlike the previous situation, I approached this time. Well, by approach I mean stand a "safe distance" away, sort of leading the conversation from there. The takeaways were... interesting. It was just my luck that this girl was from Boston, another random place to come to UVA from, and was staying at a hotel because one of her roommates had tested positive for the virus. What a gathered from the conversation was this girl in particular was "plain Jane" as they come. Didn't really have a reason for going to the school, had no idea of what she wanted to do, and was either a) not interested in talking or b) just a boring individual. Both lead to the same conclusion. In terms of school, she was saying the classes are all online, and she hasn't been meeting people. The whole time I'm there thinking, what the hell are you doing wasting money and time here then? I didn't say it, but there were multiple moments it would have been a relevant question. She even said she was going home to Boston for a couple weeks because she didn't need to be here, with everything being online and the whole quarantine thing.

On a somewhat unrelated note, something I just want to quickly touch on... There's this narrative or idea that it's weird to date someone if the ages aren't "compatible". It's unclear what "compatible" is supposed to even mean, as my parents are 4 years apart, and that's a statistically normal age difference. Like, it's the norm for the man to be a bit older than the woman. I dated a girl 3 years and some months younger than me, and that wasn't weird. I've been with women double my age and it's been fine. Personally, my take is the life goals need to be similar, as well as general values. The laws are also arbitrary as hell, which is weird to me. It comes back to the idea of maturity. How is there an arbitrary age that changes from state to state, country to country, where a relationship is or is not legal? My point here is I think it's just down to the individual girl, in terms of whether or not we'd be compatible, rather than her age. I found the second girl dull and hard to carry on a conversation with, while the first was at least confident and kinda interesting. If the ages had been reversed, I don't think I'd have been automatically been turned off by the first one. Same with a girl my age or older. What matters to me is are we compatible in the necessary categories. Being able to converse is number one.

To wrap this up, and to actually do the title justice, I want to give my thoughts on college. The reason I narrated those stories is the contrast in both women. It's not just women, either, but at this point I can't be bothered to deal with dudes. Most guys don't know what they want in life. I know first hand. My point here is I just don't get what the point of college is. I heard these hockey announcers discussing it on a podcast, where one had two daughters who are student athletes. He was saying how stressful it is, and how they just want to play sports. That's another issue altogether, the whole student athlete nonsense... Anyways, with the first year girl in the park, I just don't get why you'd send your kid to college at this point. Especially to an out-of-state, public university. It's bad enough that many degrees don't translate directly to jobs, but now you've got the pandemic. The girl even said she thinks they'll shut UVA down pretty soon. She also said JMU is closed, which I wouldn't know, tbf, as I don't have friends there and don't check news or Facebook. I just think, and the statistics seem to back this up, that the trend is to go to college, despite the lack of guaranteed income afterwards. My experience was fine because I got my degree and incurred zero debt. I also realize that's not possible for many, which again begs the question: what's the point? Especially, and I can't emphasize this enough, with the social experience being drastically altered in a negative way. I kinda get it if you're looking to network, which can be done with clubs and Greek stuff, but let's be real, most degrees are BS. Aside from specialties like architecture and engineering, degrees require either further education or further training to do anything productive.

One "silver lining" or whatever of this shitshow should be that people begin to reconsider this scam, because, as I said, for most people that's what it is. For some reason, I still don't think that will happen. To put it bluntly, a "college education" has been declining in quality for decades, while increasing in price. Either people are fucking idiots or the brainwashing is working more than anyone could have expected. Even this idea that you need to "go out and find yourself" AKA get blackout drunk and have pointless sex with strangers, is idiotic. Yet here we are. This goes on in the "real world" as well, not just college. I also find it somewhat ironic that the girls I talked to were looking to work in quite possibly the two most corrupt industries; business and politics. Oh, and the scam part is gonna be even more obvious when colleges close down because people are getting sick, or at least testing positive or whatever, and then they keep the tuition, which was obvious from the get go.