In the middle of a lukewarm night about a month ago, a group of friends and I trespassed onto the Crim Dell Amphitheatre. Crossing the triple-layered yellow rope felt how I’d imagine stepping into a boxing ring for a welterweight bout might feel… Something on the other end of those menacing “DANGER DO NOT ENTER” signs fastened to the rope I found a bit ironic: no clear and obvious sense of impending doom.

Clique clique,
The white shone bright,
The politest of no's,
We don't accept you tonight.

The world outside furiously rolls along the pane of laminated glass like snapshots on an everlasting film reel. For now, the sequence features an anonymous roadside corn field, but that’s bound to change as we move along the road.

When I was a little girl, I thought doors had feelings. The ones with peeling paint and duct-taped mail slots felt bad about themselves. The doors painted red, wearing golden handles were snobbish. I liked the door across the street from mine best. It had dark brown wood with patterned window panes, the kind through which you could only make out light and blurry figures.

I’ve worn the same two items of clothing to almost every hookup I’ve embarked on at the College of William and Mary. First, I adorn a black bomber jacket from H&M, one with too many zippers and too few pockets. It makes me look 10 times edgier than I actually am, and I like that because it signals to the men I’m meeting that I don’t need their validation.