My Experience at a Social Club Ice Breaker on Campus

In the beginning of this school year, a couple of classmates and I decided to attend the ice breaker of one of the most well-known social clubs on campus.  I still remember the apprehension that built up as the event approached.  It was a combination of feeling excited about what’s in store and anxiousness  about being there.

The moment I stepped into the registration area, I felt a rush of nervousness despite the high positive energy that the club executives were giving off.  Only after seeing my classmate there did I feel a little bit less nervous.  I tried to act as casual as possible when getting myself a name tag in order to conceal my uneasiness.  It felt strange because when engaging in on-campus activities, I had often been on the host side where I was part of the group running the event.

The second time I felt strange was when I entered the venue where the ice breaker was to take place.  The room was already filled with people, chatter, and laughter.  Immediately I felt that I didn’t fit in.  After we watched the introductions to the club and a game started, my classmate and I left the venue together because we did not feel like participating anymore.

When we debriefed about our experiences and talked about how we felt, we realized that we felt uncomfortable for different reasons.  My reason was “I’m dressed differently.”  What I meant by that was literally that my clothing was fitting in with the rest of the participants at the event.  I felt that I was dressed a little too formally than everyone else.  However, I soon acknowledged to my classmate that I do realize that this is solely my own feeling – no one made any remark about the way I dressed nor did I feel that they looked at me in any way that elicited those feelings.  I knew that the reason I felt that way was due to my previous “knowledge” about how the club is perceived by others and how I didn’t fit into that description.

In the end, my classmate and I decided to head back to the ice breaker where we stayed until the event finished.

Relating this Experience to our Class

When I did the reading, “Guyland” by Michael Kimmel, I thought back to this experience.  For class, we read chapters 1 and 4 in the book.  In Chapter 1, Kimmel talks about the notion of “Guyland.”  “Guyland” is a phase in the life of males (in Western society) in which as boys, they become men.  Males in Guyland are mostly “white, middle-class kids; they are college-bound, in college, or have recently graduated….” (P. 8)  Concurrently, Kimmel speaks about Guyland as if it was a physical space.

After discussing about fraternities, in chapter 4, Kimmel writes about how college girls find their identities in their sororities in relation to these males.  Kimmel writes as though these girls are entering the physical location of “Guyland.”  The girls can choose to be either a “bitch” ¨(please excuse my language) or a “babe.”  The latter “ does not model herself on a guy’s expectations of her, but rather on her own expectations of herself,” (P. 249) and as a result they are shunned and ridiculed.  To be a “babe” one must comply with the expectations and social norms of the sisters and brothers.  For the girls, their first time entering Guyland is very unfamiliar to them, and the choices they then make have a big impact on their identities and how they are perceived by others.  In a similar yet non-identical way, I felt as though I was entering a “foreign territory” when I entered the event venue.  I was constantly thinking about how I was presenting myself and whether I should engage in activities (such as chants and photos) that I did not feel comfortable engaging in.  Thankfully, throughout the event, regardless whether I participated in the activity or refused to take part, the club members and event participants were non-judgmental and did not look down on me.  I felt respected regardless of the choices I made.

This is also a topic of structure versus agency, where this social club is a structure and everyone within it may or may not have agency depending on how the person personally feels.  For example, when I left the event out of nervousness, I chose to leave the event because I personally felt that I didn’t belong because of my preconceptions of the club.  The structure, or my preconception of the club, came into play with my choice or actions, or my agency.

To conclude, I must say that the social club I mentioned in this blog post is very different from Guyland in that basing off from my observations from the ice breaker event, the social club is an open and inclusive club and will not coerce club members and event participants to do things they don’t  actively nor passively.

 

Source: Kimmel, M. (2008). Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.