Remember when the end of the summer meant a shopping trip with your mom and a first-day-of-school photo shoot to chronicle the beginning of first/second/third/fourth grade?

Then high school hit, and you took your own initiative to blow your money on the perfect ensemble to make a statement on day one. Freshman year meant something eye-catching enough to grab the attention of a studly senior, whereas by senior year, your wardrobe had to scream, “I’m a senior. I own this school. And I’m f***ing graduating, bitch!”

Now that college is just around the corner, is it time to retire the tradition of back-to-school clothes, or do you simply need to step it up a notch?

On the first day of college, the campus will be filled with tens of thousands of students, frantically trying to change their schedules, pay their financial aid, and find the right classroom in the right building. It was easy to get noticed in high school, when you were one fashionista among only a few hundred, but in college, the people you meet on the first day are most likely to be a nameless, faceless blur who were kind enough to give you irections to the registrar’s office.

If you are thinking about going all out for a first day of school ensemble, ask yourself what your motivation is. Do you want to look professional to impress the teacher? Give yourself a little extra self-confidence to make it through the day? Find a nice college boy to walk you from one class to another? The following are some broad categories of BTS-wear that I have encountered year after year. You might fall into one of these groups, or you may notice a few hundred students who do on the first day of college. Read More »

I am an expert in awkward situations. When I first meet people, more often than not, I leave a horrible first impression. I am similarly awkward in my attempts to be a part of the dating scene.

Just last week, a coworker exclaimed, “Kathryn, you have no game. Your entire approach is off!” Yes, this is true. But somehow, I still get some action, which is why she followed her (rather harsh) declaration with the question, “How do you do it?”

Still, no matter how many times I’ve immediately wished I could retract the bizarre statement that just came out of my mouth, I’ve also been with, or had friends who have been with, equally hopeless guys.

Reviewing my own traumatic events, as well as some of my friends’ bizarre sexual encounters, I’ve compiled a list of some of the worst things to say during sex. Because I’m a woman, they are written from a female perspective, but each of these can be just as cringe-worthy coming from a guy.

1. “Ohhhh, Michael… I mean… Dan?”
Make sure you know the name of the person you’re inviting past the pearly gates. Calling someone by another name will at once crush your partner’s ego and make you look sleazy. Once, I was hooking up with a guy and he proceeded to pour out his feelings for another girl… and try to get my advice on how to go about courting her. That really sucked, and he was pissed when I cut our session short. Read More »

To me, (to most people I think..) meeting the parents is a big deal. If I actually like someone enough, if I actually foresee a guy being in my life longer than a few dates, then maybe at some point I will bring him to my parent’s house and subject him to my family.

I think giving your significant other a heads-up of things to avoid before the grand introduction is the right thing to do. (I.E. wearing that OSU Beavers t-shirt is a bad call, and under NO circumstances ask my dad about his TV.) And I would like to assume this philosophy is a common ideal - the whole wait until you are sure someone is decent and going to be around for a while before you dive into “the family introduction”, and give them a short prep-course before the big event.

But, if I were to assume that I would be wrong.

This weekend I was completely blindsided by an impromptu Meet the Parents. And by impromptu I mean, my current gent and I were (unbeknownst to me) 15 minutes away from from his parents house and he suggested we stop in to “pick something up.”

Meet the parents?? This was a bold strategy considering we have only been dating a few weeks, and as I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and then looked down at my outfit, my nervous panic of the potentially “big step” in a relationship was dwarfed by the panic over my appearance. This was not an appropriate first-impression-look I had going on.

I am a person who takes first impressions very seriously. Ideally, when meeting the parents I like to have ample time to prepare; actually wash and style my hair, put on some make-up (not too much of course), and pick out a respectable outfit (maybe a nice cardigan…). Basically I like to make sure parents don’t look at me in horror and wonder if their son needs an eye exam, which I am sure is the exact feeling my new guy’s parents had after one look at me. Read More »