As a first-year student, one of my favorite forms of entertainment was spotting stragglers head back to their dorm rooms Saturday, Sunday and even occasionally Friday mornings. Observing those slow-paced walk-of-shamers really is the pinnacle of people watching. Even those that went to parties requiring no special attire are distinguishable by their hunched shoulders and squinty-eyed faces as they shuffle back to their buildings.
By far the best opportunities to watch for walks of shame though are around the times of year when themed parties are the most prevalent. The morning after St. Patrick’s Day especially, is a very funny time to take a stroll down Rugby Road and watch for leftovers. It is pretty hard for anyone making his or her way back on that morning to hide the garish green attire they still have on. While St. Patrick’s Day has its moments, Halloween, however, is definitely the undisputed champion of the funniest walks of shame. I am sure that if you peeked out the window anytime before noon this past weekend you saw at least one person trudging back in their vampire cape or carrying their fairy wings from the night before.
Nevertheless, while I admit to deriving more than a little enjoyment from spotting these people, I am certainly not advocating the walk of shame. Sure it’s funny when someone in a toga has to scrape their way past a morning admissions tour, but it is a tad tacky on the part of the pseudo-Roman caught doing it. After all, we are more than halfway through the semester now. At this point, even all you first-year students should have picked up a few tricks to avoid such sticky situations. But, just in case you haven’t, here are some good rules of thumb for beginners and a little refresher course for older readers.
The most basic way to avoid the walk of shame is simple: When the party is over, go home. Making it back to your own abode should never be difficult if you are sticking to the three cardinal rules of going out. First, never go anywhere by yourself. You’d be surprised how much a difference having someone to walk home with makes. It is not only safer for everyone involved, but it heightens your motivation if the fate of another person is entangled in your decision to stay or go. Second, always have your cell phone charged and on you. This too is a primary safety rule, but it also increases your means of finding ways home and tracking down buddies to walk back with you. The third rule then comes in close conjunction with the second, within your cell phone you should have a repertoire of resources to help get you home in the event that you cannot do it yourself. I mean, come on people, they give you the numbers of Safe Ride and Yellow Cab at orientation for a reason.
If, however, luck is not in your favor and you find yourself stuck somewhere other than your official place of residence, then it is time to throw the rules out the window and just do damage control. First and foremost remember: It is only a walk of shame if someone sees you doing it. Make an effort to wake up before the average college student (usually any time before 9 a.m.) and you are in the clear to slip back to your room and remove your Tinkerbell costume unnoticed. When this is not an option though, there is only one thing you can do. Clean yourself up, make your outfit look as normal as possible and act natural when you walk home. This final option should always be a last resort because it isn’t totally effective at saving face. Be that as it may, if this is the only viable option left to you, you might as well just get it over with because it probably isn’t an especially proud morning for you anyway.
So now that you’ve had a review in the essentials of avoiding shame, hopefully you will never find yourself sneaking past prospective students in your 80s apparel from the previous night. Let’s face it — we call it the walk of shame for a reason. No matter how much our culture might glorify those people who are able to party all night, we never look admiringly upon the ones who couldn’t make it back before morning. So take a leaf out the book of that vampire you dressed up as: Run wild during the night, but always be home before the sun rises.
Katie’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at k.mcnally@cavalierdaily.com.
Was this article really necessary?
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no, it was not
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Wow, someone actually taking on the culture at UVA. You go, girl! You’d think that in a town where a young woman has recently vanished, people might start thinking twice.. But if the 2 comments above are any indication, it’s that the “party” must go on no matter what. Ignore these anonymous idiots, Katie – and good show. See my comments here:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2009/10/29/missing-precautions/
Taking on drunken hook up culture will get you hated aplenty. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Any guy worth any attention at all is going to still be interested enough in you to meet you for lunch the next day!
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Sean Cannan, you might as well have written “Hey Katie, I haven’t been laid in a while but I want to hook up with you. Let’s meet at Para!”
Smooth ploy, Sean, smooooth ploy.
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Crackjack advice Katie! Such late night tomfoolery may make one late for church.
DS
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I used to enjoy waking up in a gutter. Charlottesville had such nice ones.
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shout out to all you guys who think this article is about not having fun….just read the last line- “run wild during the night, but always be home before the sun rises”
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OK, stop judging people that walk home in the morning. A significant percentage are probably walking home from their friends’ apartments where they slept in a much safer environment than walking home alone at night and drunk. Think about the perverse incentives of what you are suggesting.
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Fresh, agreed. It’s far better for a woman to stay with friends and walk home in the morning – but that wasn’t what the article was about. It was about making a better decision than going home randomly with boys you just met, thus having to walk home in the am wearing last nights clothes and all. That, as you may know, can lead to any number of negative consequences far in excess of the “walk of shame.” Social stigmas – lets call it positive peer pressure – can certainly be a bad thing when taken beyond limits, but they can also be a useful counter balance to all the negative peer pressure found in a dorm. Compare how many times you’ve heard a friend say “I should have done it” as opposed to “I shouldn’t have done that” the next morning. If we’re talking about sex with a stranger – and we are – I don’t have to start listing the consequences, do I?
But even in a town still looking for a young woman who vanished a few weeks ago, there are still those who think this is all all a big joke, and come on here to attack someone who dares speak out against the hook up culture that sees so many women going off with boys they barely know. Boys – and I DO mean to avoid the term “men” – that obviously require a woman to be extremely drunk and disoriented to provide them with their minimum weekly requirement of casual sex.
Speaking of which, Edgar, you can say what you want about me or the author of the article. We attach our names to our words. We are not cowards hiding behind fake online names here just so we can insult people anonymously. I have no idea who Katie is, and probably never will. At my age, I don’t have any real business or interest in hitting on an undergrad, but indeed 4 UVA women have hit on me (3 rather successfully). And none of us were rip roaring drunk and/or total strangers. I mention this only because I like to tweak your teenage masculinity issues, and remind you how immature and insecure you are to need to just “get laid.” As for people having sex at Para, this I didn’t know.
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Of course seeing the walk-of-shamers can be entertaining (especially when theme parties/Halloween are involved), but don’t sit on your high horse and be Queen Judgey.
If someone is walking home in the morning, it can mean one of many things. Maybe they were too wasted to get home safely, and decided to crash at a friend’s place rather than walk home drunk and alone at 4am (or wait 45 minutes for SafeRide). Maybe they walked someone ELSE home. Maybe they just really like togas. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, they actually just decided to sleep over somewhere and didn’t bring a suitcase with a change of clothes in it. What’s the big deal? At least maybe someone is getting laid.
I don’t understand why this article was necessary. A walk of shame is mildly funny when it’s not you, and mildly inconvenient when you’re doing it. Obviously, no one is thrilled to have to do the walk of shame, but it’s their choice, so leave them, their togas, and smudged eyeliner in peace.
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Hannah, when you find yourself wondering why no men consider you marriage material just a few years from now – please refer back to your “at least someone is getting laid” quote here. If you want to screw around with whoever, whenever, and sleep with people you just met – you obviously are free to do so. But, naturally, you don’t want to talk about all the consequences, do you? And by that I mean the immediate, the short term, and the long term. The physical and the emotional. How dare someone try and rain on the drunken sex party tradition that is UVA, right? I daresay that women from, say, the class of 2001 would have a very different perspective on this tradition looking back. So will you, but probably only after an STD, a date rape, an abortion, or what have you. At all seems like a funny joke until somebody faces some very real consequences.
This article was necessary as it was about time somebody actually stood up to this tradition on grounds. I’ve seen and heard of many of the consequences among room mates, friends, and girlfriends here in town over the last 5 years. Some of them really, really bad. It’s a sick culture driven by hideous peer pressure and social stigmatization.
Having said that, I agree with you that it’s far better to walk home the next morning (after sunrise) than to venture home alone at night. But that’s only when you have friends (or a bf/gf) you know and trust to sleep over with. Safe Ride vans should be tripled in number instead of adding more lights here or there. If indeed you wait that long for one, that would be money very well spent.
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Hahaha, Sean, your arrogance is truly remarkable. I never said that I personally do these things or condone them, I simply said that if people want to make poor choices, allow them to do so and get over it. For some reason it seems unfathomable to you that (God forbid) some tipsy co-eds should choose to have a good old-fashioned one night stand and not suffer serious repercussions. Newsflash: just because someone has a one night stand doesn’t mean rape or other awful things are involved. Get a clue. People are entitled to their choices. Just because you personally do not make those choices doesn’t give you the right to condemn everyone else.
The only friends of mine who have ever been in danger are the ones who chose to walk home alone, blackout drunk, at 4am. The ones who roll in at 10am have always been safer. Don’t turn this into a personal attack on me just because you agree with this article; it just makes you look foolish.
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Funny. I didn’t discern any gender-specificity in the original article. As a matter of fact, I envisioned a young man doing the walk of shame, not a young woman. Please remember that it is very dangerous for ANYONE to be staggering home late at night, unaccompanied. Most of the robberies/muggings that occur on or near Grounds seem to have males as victims. Maybe Katie had men and women in mind, but those who left comments seem to think this article is all about having a drunken hook up. Let’s keep everyone safe and play Good Samaritan if we see anyone, male or female, trying to strike out for home when they are not in the condition to do so.
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As a graduate of the University, and a close friend of Sean’s I will spend some time on this one. Live your life but realize the laws of physics and chance still apply to you. Both sides have their merits and it is about a choice. Yes, casual and non-committed interactions between the sexes can be entertaining and fun in the short term. It is important to know that yes there are consequences, people should be smarter and make better decisions (myself especially.) Buy the ticket, take the ride.
I don’t agree with Sean that the author is breaking any new ground by “taking on the party culture.” This is an old debate about partying at Virginia.
I also believe that the article was written in a very smug form. Let’s remember that it was a form of entertainment for the author (who is probably still a teenager) to see the after effects on Rugby Road. The position was one of condescension so it is hard to take her perspective seriously.
The exchange that follows is worth note as well. It was hinted that men are the ones who need booze in order to seduce helpless females who would be studying for their psychology exam if an evil boy in a pair of flip flops wasn’t offering them aristocrat vodka mixed with Tang. I take issue because at my deepest level I am a feminist and as such know that women can be very active participants in the exchange.
Bad stuff happens yes, but to force your life style choices on others is wrong. Recent events should not be used to push a moral agenda, and if people want to have fun, protect yourself and be honest with whom you play.
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Hannah, for starters – we agree 100% on your point that women should not be stumbling home drunk at 3 am, and that staying with FRIENDS and going home in the AM is a far better option. But that is a very different thing than going off with a man you met an hour before. So I agree with both you and Katie depending on whether the late night company is familiar and trustworthy or not. Maybe it was one of your friends – or you – that I found passed out on JPA half way under an SUV and helped home. But of course we can’t dare rain on the party, now can we.
But even in a town where a 20 year old woman recently vanished at 9 pm – the peer pressure driven culture seems to have not skipped even a step. And a UVA kid calling someone else arrogant is really humorous. I never said all hook ups ended in disaster, only that there is a silent epidemic of both physical and emotional problems that the culture – encouraged by UVA itself – does a very cruel job of covering up. The eating disorders, suicide attempts, and other “not talked about” repercussions that contribute in large part to the huge numbers of young college kids with emotional and psychological problems.
It’s all part of a very organized regime, actually. Instead of giving every freshman student some pepper spray or making sure safe ride can handle a Friday night crowd – UVA makes sure their Peer Pressure “health educators” get UVA teenagers some flavored anal lube instead. And if you are going to promote and profit from this culture, as was Casteen’s plan by opening Elson and the Teen Center, then any and all of the negative consequences must be suppressed and covered up.
It’s a good thing that you are going to be 21 forever (at least according to all those fake ID’s), and that your biology is impervious to getting breast cancer, HPV, cervical cancer, heart disease, and so on. All your “good old fashioned one night stands” will never result in a pregnancy like hundreds of others do at UVA every year. And the steroid pills consumed like candy by women all over to facilitate this lifestyle will not affect your biology, because your ideology will not allow it.
Lucky you.
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