Getting Down and “Dirty”

I walk into a third-floor classroom of Boylston Hall and take a seat. It’s the first day of section, and after we all shuffle around and take out our books, our Dutch TF gets a little perky and asks us for introductions: “Name, year, and a fun fact! Be creative!”

This third bit always seems to inspire a few under-the-breath groans from everyone seated around the table, as we all mull over something PG-rated and charming to tell the new class (the fact that you’re probably the only kid in class who’s had a threesome, even if technically classified as a “fun fact,” may not be appropriate to whip out).

Some kids, I’ve noticed, use the same one every time: “I once lit my toe on fire; I was five.” Everyone chuckles. Some kids are awkward, and just tell you they’re really not that interesting and hence have nothing to say (words of advice: just make something up). Anyhow, as we’re all playing the fun-fact game, the TF finally looks to me. As I begin my introduction, “Hi, my name is Cather...” I suddenly get cut off by a friend in the class. “No, call her...ha...call her Dirty Cathy!”

The TF looks to me quizzically, tilting her head to the side, and asks “Dirty...Cathy?” I know. This nickname sounds either like I’m trying to recreate Christina Aguilera’s assless-chaps days, rolling around in mud and proclaiming that I’m “too dirrrty to clean my act up,” or that I’m simply just someone who forgoes bathing on a regular basis. In either case, I sound like I have some serious issues, be they sexual or hygienic.

In reality, the nickname stems from something really innocent, and not Britney-Spears-proclaiming-to-still-be-a-virgin-in-’03 innocent. I mean actually innocent. I got the nickname freshman year, while my friends and I were all sitting around our common room in Weld, which I can now see from my seat in Boylston. As I was leaving to go shower in the hallway bathroom, a friend turned and asked, “Why do you need to shower right now?” Jokingly, someone replied, “Because she’s dirty.” And that’s it. Some buffoon turned and loudly proclaimed, “Oh my God, we’ve got it. Dirty Cathy!”

And it stuck. I’d like to say that’s the only reason the nickname’s been around, even two years later. In reality, the seemingly innocent joke transformed itself into a nickname for an “alter ego” that my friends insist I have.

Now, when I talk about an “alter ego,” I don’t mean it in the DSM-IV sense of a symptom of Multiple Personality Disorder. Rather, I mean it more along the lines of “someone you’re usually not” (courtesy urbandictionary.com). In this sense, alter egos seem to be everywhere these days: Beyoncé can’t get out in a leotard and spread her legs for the “Single Ladies” dance as herself—it’s her alter ego “Sasha Fierce” who’s hitting the stage. Recently I heard about a Swedish parliament member who went on an all-expenses-paid trip to the south of Spain. He claimed it wasn’t him as a politician accepting gratuities to fund the little booze cruise, but rather his alter ego, a drag queen named Ursula.

At a school where we’re constantly divided between our study-mode selves and our rage-hard-on-a-Friday-night selves, we can come to a point where we look at certain aspects of our personalities or certain behaviors as somehow disconnected from who we are. We trade in our textbooks for tequila and let the good times roll.

I have talked to countless people on campus that can’t remember the last time they had sober sex; would that count as an alter ego? A liquored-up, sexy alter ego? Then there are the people, myself included, who seem to acknowledge everyone they remotely recognize as a dear close friend on Fridays and Saturdays after 10 p.m., only to see them in the dining hall on Sunday and think it would be silly to say hello, since “we’re not even friends really.” Would that count as a drunk/high, Mr.-Rogers-ish-I-love-my-neighbor alter ego?

In reality, I don’t think being a college drunkard actually justifies the making of an “alter ego,” per se. Nevertheless, friends insist that I have another side of me, someone whom they endearingly refer to as “Dirty Cathy.” I won’t get into who “she” is or what “she” does. I’ll just say the name, as obscene as it may sound, never ceases to haunt me.

In a way, it’s nice to be able to wake up the next morning after a particularly rough night out and be able to pass off all of those mortifying moments to someone else; someone who will be buried away until next weekend after the sun goes down.

However, it is just taking the easy way out. Yes, it’s kind of absurd to leave a party at 1 a.m. and buy a box of Cheeze-Its at CVS, only to walk all the way back to the Quad, trusted Cheez-Its in hand, sending ludicrous texts messages in lolcatz lingo, trying to find someone to join the party of one: “oh hai; u wantz to come overz?”

But maybe we should all start embracing this side of ourselves, rather than passing it off on someone else—an alter ego or just an inebriated self that does things our sober persons would never do. Perhaps everyone else has come to terms with this, and I’m just the last one holding on, too terrified to take the blame.

I guess this meshing of personalities must be done little by little if I want to shake the saga of Dirty Cathy. I’ll try to say “Hi” to the bro sitting across the table from me, whom I’ve hugged on the weekends but purposefully avoid eye contact with in section, even if it makes me squirm. If Dirty Cathy can do it, I can do it too.