Girls and guys

There was great squealing and high-pitched shrills of excitement. There were bright colors, and magazine pages of extremely attractive men. Bright leggings. Green eye shadow. Hot pink shower caddies. Boxes of Easy Mac. Digital cameras flashing. And did I mention the squealing?

It was the girls’ wing in one of the freshman dorms on campus during Welcome Week. I had brought in a photographer to shoot move-in festivities. As he followed me down the female hallway, he looked at me with raised eyebrows. He could either have been wanting to know if it was OK that he—a man—was on the floor. Or he could have been wanting to know what the heck I was making him do...entering this cave of femininity! Either way, I beckoned him to keep following. I asked the squealing girls if any of them would be willing to let us take some photos of them in their new room. The response? 10 girls jumping up and down excitedly. We willSUREcometoourroomWEJUSTDECORATEDlemmeputmybethelsweatshirtonMETOOpickus.

Disentangling ourselves after much photo-taking to do, we moved to the boys’ side. It was quiet. I heard the whir of a window fan. The majority of the floor had already hit the dining center for dinner, but at the end of the hall was one open door. We peered into the dark room. There, slouched on the couch with massive headphones on, not talking, were two freshman guys lit only by the glow of a huge flat screen TV. Their bodies were connected to the massive square in front of them by cords and controllers. Their fingers were flying, and thousands of sci-fi, action-packed DVDs built a fortress around them. Uh. Suddenly, I felt out of place, wondering what I was making us do! Can we take your picture? I asked the boys. I mean after you've hit the jackpot, or killed the enemy, or drank the the secret elixir, or whatever you do on those video games. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said—or grunted—sure.

The pictures turned out very different.
Girls and guys are very different.