This is my “Welcome to college” story. I’m sure everyone has one. That story that after, the only thing that seems right to say is “Whelp. Welcome to College.” For me, this story happened to find me via a very flamboyant bisexual model with cheekbones that could cut into your soul. In the interest of maintaining his friendship, I shall refer to him simply as Jeff.

My first impression of Jeff was at orientation. I, being something of an introvert, was rather cautious of him and made sure to stay out of his way so as to avoid the dreaded bubbly socialization that I was certain would ensue. He was a performing arts major and a quite obvious one at that. His favorite past time seemed to be listening to the sound of his own voice, and I found it very difficult to avoid hearing it myself. I quickly found out through unintentional eavesdropping his birthday – which was one of his favorite topics – his work record as a summer camp counselor, and his passion for theater. I must say that I do respect his passion, not only as a thespian but in general as well.

But this, I’m afraid, was just the beginning. As I previously mentioned, I am not one to mingle unless I have a specific reason to do so. However, if someone wishes to make conversation over lunch, I am not at all opposed to obliging. Such was the case with Jeff. I was fixing a plate one afternoon with every intention to chow down and head out without interaction. Then Jeff walked up behind me and began speaking. I admit, I usually ignore people who randomly begin speaking in my general direction as, more times than not, they are communicating with someone near me. I quickly glanced behind me to see where he was looking in order to get out of his way if necessary, but it looked like he was speaking to me.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yeah, you’re in my class, right?” He replied. We were in the same class, but I figured that I was not noticed by most people. Before I could really get out an answer he did it for me. “Yeah. Of course, you are. You wanna sit together, because – like – all my friends have already eaten and I don’t really want to sit alone,”

I mumbled a quick “Sure,” and ducked away to get more food. To my surprise a few minutes after I situated myself in a booth, he actually joined me. We exchanged pleasantries, and he re-introduced himself despite my knowledge of not only his name but every other piece of trivia that I would ever need short of his mother’s maiden name.

We spoke for a short time about things like food, and how we had an assignment or two coming up and then the conversation took a complete 180. It began with a simple question.

“We’re friends, right?” he asked.

“Yes?” I said hesitantly

“I can trust you, right?”

“Sure…”

And thus, was the beginning of two hours of singularly unique conversation. Jeff proceeded to unfold the entirety of his sexual history in full detail. He started with his current relationship status, moved on to the drama surrounding his crushes, and wrapped up by putting everything in context with a description of each sexual encounter he had experienced.

He received his first blow job in the rafters of his high school theater.

He gave his first blow job in the wings of the same theater.

He lost his virginity the prior fourth of July.

He once fooled around with a guy that was well endowed to the tune of 9″ with considerable girth. This was a point of interest in the conversation, as there were visual aids.

“I actually have a picture!” he said, pulling out his phone.

“Oh!” I replied, both confused and taken aback by the enthusiasm with which he announced it to the cafeteria.

“You wanna see it?”

“No, not really.”

“Well this is it!” he said turning his phone before I could react. The strange thing about this particular photo was not just that there was a penis running through the left half of the photo, and not even that you could clearly see exactly how long it was. No, the strange part was that in order to prove the size, Jeff had bent over and used his face as the reference to show the impressive nature of this particular phallus. In other words, he had taken a selfie with the dick.

This conversation, needless to say, broke down any and all barriers between us, and I’m happy to say that we stayed friends the rest of that year. Toward the end of the year, after many discussions but no more about sexual exploits, we were discussing our potential housing situations for the following year. I mentioned that I didn’t have a roommate and he responded similarly.

“Really?” He asked, “Me neither! I’ve tried looking for people, but I can’t find anyone, and I really need a room, and I don’t have anyone.”

He rambled on for the next three minutes and I finally asked: “Do you want to be roommates?”

“Whaaat?!” he exclaimed. “I thought you’d never ask! Ohmygosh, we should totally do that!”

We are now roommates and will be again next year, and he’s still one of the best friends I have at school. I’ll never forget that first conversation, though. As I walked out of the cafeteria that fateful fall day trying to wrap my head around what had just happened, the only sensible reaction I could conjure was “Well shit. Welcome to college, Nick.”

-Nickel