Interview 1: Lynn*

* (names have been changed)
the following are the notes from my interview with Lynn on 9 October, 2005 from 7:45-8:30PM.

JR: Is there anything you've never told anyone?
LL: Yes, but only deep dark secrets. Skeletons in the closet. Most of my secrets get shared with my best friends and/or my suitemates.

JR: Tell me about girls and being suitemates? Are the stereotypes about guys' suites and girls' suites true?
LL: Girl relationships are more polar. Either we love each other or hate each other. Why hang around with people that you don't really really like? I mean, I do, but I think that's the logic. Guys can just hang out with people they get along with, even if they're not best friends.

[A girl runs by with spangly earrings.]
LL: It's freakin' Christmas already!

JR: Talk to me about your socks.
LL: They're very short, and they have orange hearts, which make me happy. They made me very happy when I bought them at some Abercrombie knockoff store like Aeropostale. I never go in there, except when I do I buy the weirdest things.

JR: What's your philosophy on girl/guy games?
LL: I don't have a philosophy, because, like organized sports, I suck at them. I try to be honest and then I get fucked over.

JR: I'd like to stick to the girl/guy topic, but I noticed you're "married" on the facebook to some girl in California.
LL: Yeah, that's my best friend from back home . . . we're not like that, but we could've gotten marriend in San Francisco for like, 5 minutes. One time, she got a boyfriend, and she almost cancelled our "marriage" so she could put up her new relationship, but I was like, "we don't cancel on each other for boys."

JR: What do you think of the idea that girls want everything to just "fall into place," rather than having some guy consciously make decisions along the way?
LL: I don't think they just want things to fall into place. In assuming that they do, you have to assume that guys aren't "chasing," which my girl friends love. I find that guys are usually well-meaning but clueless.
JR: If guys are clueless, doesn't that imply that girls set the rules?
LL: Well, I don't mean that girls set the rules always. I think in every relationship there's a dominant and a submissive player. I think it's easier in same-sex relationships, because someone's just dominant, and the other's submissive. In hetero relationships, however, you start applying gender labels, like "wears the pants."

JR: What did you do for shits and giggles when you were 8?
LL: Well, I lived in on the beach outside LA, so I used to sell lemonade to people on the beach. Well, they usually had no money, so I just gave it away. I didn't really have any use for all the lemonade, so I was like, "here, have some." Not very lucrative, though. One year, I decided to dress up as the princess of hearts for halloween. (Not the Queen of Hearts, because the Queen has a big ugly thing behind her head.) So we got an old prom dress and dyed it red. For years after that Halloween, I would randomly put the dress on and go outside and flash cars. I was wearing underwear, but it wasn't like it was really cute underwear that I wanted to show off, or anything. A neighbor caught me one time. Ever since, when he's at my family gatherings, he always goes off into, "you'll never guess what Lynn did one time..."

JR: Tell me about your earring?
LL: This one? [Points to a female sign] I wear this to see if people will comment. No one ever does; it bums me out.
JR: You said that about something else - oh, your brother being a 5th-year senior. How you never get the reaction you expect when you tell people that.
LL: Yeah, my life is a string of disappointing reactions.
JR: Oh? Like?
LL: Yeah, but you have to guess what they are. I always feel like I give away too much information, so I'm not just going to volunteer them.
Me: ok. Maybe about flirting? How do you tell the difference between the ones that don't make eye contact because they think they're too cool and the ones that don't because they're just freaked out to be flirting?
LL: Unsure. I think I always make it quite clear I'm just scared shitless. Hence nothing happening with the waiter that left me a flower in Italy. They guys there are totally forward, but I always run away.

[end]