If No One Remembers It, Did It Ever Happen?

What’s up, UIC?

Listen, I’ve got a secret… I’ve seen you accidentally drop your giant heavy cup during your quiet 10am lecture. I’ve seen you knock into somebody during your blue line commute when the ride got bumpy. I’ve seen you play a Snapchat story on your phone that you thought was muted, only to have it blast at 100% for the entire class to hear. And guess what? I don’t care, and nobody else does.

Let’s get one thing straight, guys. Embarrassment is NOT real. Your mind is playing tricks on you, and you all are falling for it harder than a freshman's GPA during midterms. And we gotta change that ASAP.

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Take this example… which may or may not be a story from my past. Ahem. Imagine you’re at a party in Harter Heights, Indiana. Inside the foyer of the mansion is a fancy long staircase, to which you’re heading down. You lock eyes with someone, you're both giving each other the "look", and you’re definitely thinking their number has got to be in your phone by the end of the night. You’re walking down while still making eye contact, trying to act all cool and tough, and--whoops. You trip straight down the last steps, landing right in front of the person you were totally just trying to make fall in love with you.

You may be wondering, how did I survive that situation with my aura intact? Drum roll... I wasn't embarrassed.

Now, I might've told a lie in the beginning. Embarrassment is real--but only if you make it real. When you find yourself in situations like these, you have two options: be embarrassed, act all flustered, and replay the scene over and over in your head while you're awake at 2am or laugh it off and keep on moving. Choose wisely.

Here at UIC, everyone is too busy worrying about changing their major for the hundredth time, the math class they have 21 missing assignments in, or how they're gonna finesse their teacher into giving them extra credit. When you do something "embarrassing", everyone's gonna completely forget that the whole thing even happened the second you walk away.

C'mon, UIC, let’s all agree to a new social rule, effective immediately: NO embarrassment allowed.