In college, there is a lot of gossip, a lot of smack talking and definitely a lot of drama. A few things have come to my attention about the way that these types of events unfold.

The first thing that happens is someone does or says something rude to you and you are immediately aggravated. “She told me that I looked sloppy. We are NOT on that level, who does that bitch think she is?”

Then it becomes personal. Because you start telling other people you don’t like that person when their name comes up in conversation, or when you see them on the Facebook invite to a party. Your friends agree with you because you’re always right (oh wait, that’s me who is always right. Awkward). Anyway, then you start getting random text messages during the day

“I saw Jane walking into the CLA today.” And then shit talking continues.

“What was she doing?” “Walking to class, I think she gained weight too…”

Then you continue to collect reasons why you hate that person. And some of them are completely irrelevant. “Did you know she doesn’t eat meat? What a freak.”

I saw a pin on Pinterest that related well to this concept. “Once you hate someone everything they do becomes offensive. Look at that bitch sitting here eating those crackers like she owns the place!’

The second awkward part comes when you see them eating somewhere on campus and you walk by and you each pretend not to see each other. Thank you for pretending not to see me while I was pretending not to see you. It helped avoid a miserably awkward conversation that neither one of us wanted to have.

I think most Towson students can understand. We all have someone we don’t like, or who doesn’t like us. Except me, I’m 99 percent sure that everyone loves me. I left out one percent to account for people who don’t know me yet.

The real kicker comes when said person shows up to the same event as you. They walk in, you make awkward eye contact and then proceed to give them a hug and tell them how nice it is to see them.

Then you do the classic “We really should have lunch and catch up some time.”

And the person says “Yeah definitely, I’m free on Tuesdays.” You laugh rather awkwardly and say “Yeah, we’ll figure something out” that’s code for “I’d rather dodge traffic on I-95 then talk to you for an extensive period of time over lunch.”

I find the art of gossiping and hatred for another person so interesting, kind of intense and pretty funny.

Everyone does it, everyone thinks it. I’m just writing about it.

Give me a shout out if you can relate.