May 1, 2000

So there I was, checking out the first books I needed for my last research paper ever, when the guy behind the counter looked at me with a smirk on his face and asked, “So how much of it is true?”

I just shrugged and replied with my usual response.

“Well, it’s like this. I take everything that’s happened to me and my friends and throw it all in a blender. After that, I add random stories I’ve heard at one time or another. Then I hit puree.”

That’s how you explain the life of a fictional college guy.

For three of the last four years, I’ve spilled my thoughts on paper and for some reason or another, a few people have taken time to read them.

Granted, my core audience is my circle of friends and family, most of whom I force to read the paper every Friday. It all started as a sort of inside joke, but then other people started reading.

So there I was, dancing at the bar three years ago, when I saw a lovely lady just a few feet away. I sidled up next to her, struck up a conversation, and we began to dance. After a few minutes, however, the moment lost its romance when she asked me about Chelli.

She wanted to know if my “girlfriend” would appreciate me dancing with someone else. I explained that I didn’t have a girlfriend and that she was just a character in a column. Before walking away, she called me a naughty name and told me I should have more respect for the girls I date.

Suddenly I was feeling guilty about insufficient affection in a nonexistent relationship.

Things like that never happened in Mr. Rogers’ Land of Make Believe.

So how much of the past few years’ worth of Friday fun is true?

If you ask my friends, they’ll say far too much. If you ask my grandma, she’ll hope that it’s not very much. If you ask my mom, she’ll simply say, “Oh heavens.”

What they all realize is that you can only make up so much week in and week out. That’s why I submitted myself to hours and days and weeks of research in backyards, bars and bowling alleys around Ames. If I had fun tossing around a Bocce ball or smacking my mallet in croquet, I wanted others to try these lesser played games.

From concerts to classrooms to Campustown, I chronicled the adventures of an average college guy.

Confused about women, concerned about cash and carefree about damn near everything else, I tried to capture the extracurricular world of higher learning.

Granted, many students will go through their time at Iowa State without sleeping next to Lake Laverne, sneaking into the Cyclone locker room, or sweeping up the bar the morning after, but when these things happen, you just have to tell someone.

In fact, writing a weekly column about the weird things that can happen in an otherwise normal life can be a blessing and a curse.

She didn’t call back? Complain about it in the paper. Amazing first date? Relive it through the printed word. Trying to find someone whose last name you don’t know but whose face you can’t forget? You get the picture.

However, there are drawbacks.

Sometimes you can say too much about a good thing and let the public in on what should be shared between two people. Sometimes you can strike upon a sore subject and remind your friends why they were ever mad at you in the first place.

Sometimes you can tell the world you’re going to graduate in December and then realize you never took History of Journalism and your butt is stuck in Ames for another few months.

But that’s all said and done.

It’s been eight years, five majors and two dozen part-time jobs, and I’m finally finishing up at Iowa State and heading out into the real world.

After all that time, I’m still confused about women, I’m still concerned about cash, and I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

And so goes the life of a not-so-fictional college guy.