"Marijuana is a gateway drug, honey. It will kill you."

It wasn’t until 3 years ago, at the age of 23, that I realized that a red ring won’t show up around you if you pee in my parents’ pool. I had been living in that house and swimming in that pool since the ripe age of 6, running into the freezing cold basement and struggling to pull a wet one-piece up over my ass whenever I had to pee, and it took me 17 years to learn that my parents had been lying to me all along.

Yes, I could have been peeing in that pool for years!

After spending most of my life living a lie (one that protected everyone else swimming with me, I suppose) I started to think back on other things my parents may have been lying about. Like when they told me and my brothers that they didn’t have a favorite child, when clearly that child is me. Or when they told me they’d never done drugs. Bullsh*t, parents!

And I know I’m not the only one who’s been lied to! Apparently it’s a parent’s job to seriously mislead their children. Our friends over at Lemondrop have been lied to, and the CollegeCandy writers have been living some lies, too. Read More »

Blonde is my natural hair color. I rarely drink this much. I’m enjoying being single.

We all lie, in some form or another. We lie to our parents (it’s not a hangover; it’s a stomach bug), our teachers (I’m late because the bus was delayed, not because I forgot to set my alarm), our employers (it’s my mom’s birthday, not some girl in my hall’s 21^st) and our sexual partners (you’re the best I’ve ever had!).

Lying to someone you’re sleeping with is dangerous territory, though. By lying to them, you could be endangering their physical (or mental) health. Which lies are OK to tell, and what things do we have to fess up too?

Lie: I’ve never worn this lingerie for anyone else.

Verdict: OK. We all have a favorite pair of lingerie, and we’ve probably worn it with more than one partner. After all, good lingerie is expensive, and we shouldn’t have to throw it out just because a relationship ends. But your partner probably doesn’t want to know what you wore last time you canoodled with someone else, so it’s okay to keep that information to yourself, or fib a little if it comes up.

Lie: I never slept with [insert friend here].

Verdict: BAD. The truth will come out eventually, and it will not be pretty. How would you feel if you found out one of your partner’s close friends was actually someone they used to sleep with? It’s best to have this information up front. Read More »

This Week’s Article: 5 Lies All Women Tell by askmen.com.

This article’s tag line is: “If she’s said any of these things to you, she’s lying.” Starting off with a gross generalization is never a good thing, but let’s take a look at what lies the boys at AskMen think we’ve been telling. All of us. Every time we speak.

“I’m not mad at you.”

Askmen says: “Oh, yes she is. Don’t think you’re getting off that easily. This lie is one of the most frequently used in relationships. Typically, women who have been hurt by men in their lives — often inadvertently — use this phrase as an emotional defense. For example, if a guy forgets his girlfriend’s birthday, calls her by his ex’s name or commits any of the other minor screw ups that most men do on a daily basis, women usually can’t just let it go. They dwell on it, letting worries whittle away normal feelings of well-being like a dog gnaws on a bone.”

I say: This is true some of the time, but there are definitely times we really just aren’t mad! Really! And if we are, we don’t all let it “whittle away normal feelings of well-being”; we can get over things, you know. The best way to get around this confusion is to encourage open and honest communication from the start of a relationship. Read More »

Study hard, play hard – right? College is a major balancing act. It’s delegating what needs to get done and when, setting priorities and holding yourself to deadlines. And after a long week of working hard (attending class, writing papers, and staying ahead in the reading, just to name a few tasks), it is no wonder that college students have a reputation of wanting to party.

No one should be expected to sit in the library or stare at their dorm room walls every day of the week with their nose in a book. Everyone needs something that helps them unwind, especially on the weekends.

Sometimes finding something to do – especially on a campus where parties are a rare occasion -  is hard. I knew when I signed my life away as a Hollins woman, I was going to be living in Roanoke, Virginia,and that I wouldn’t have a big city as my playground on the weekend. I knew I wasn’t attending a huge state school where fraternity parties are the social factor and that club activities would be endless. As a prospective, I remember asking about the student life on the weekends only to hear the same fib that my fellow peers heard themselves as prospective students: “Don’t worry about it, you will always find something going on.”

Oh, but that is very far from the truth. Options on campus are very bleak. From the first weekend as a first year, I realized as no one was around on the weekends I would have to be entirely responsible for finding something to do Friday and Saturday nights. While not feeling bogged down by having too many social activities planned, I like that Hollins has a sleepy atmosphere (especially for those weekends I need to do a lot of work), but for the most part – I don’t understand why we can’t have some sort of decent entertainment when the weekend rolls around.

Read More »

You’ve been killing yourself all semester to tackle mountains of coursework while finding time to hit the gym and develop the perfect bikini bod to show off in Cancun, the Dominican Republic, Miami Beach…or wherever Spring Break 2009 finds you. When the day finally arrives, you’re ready to leave all of your woes behind. In a tropical hotspot hundreds of miles away from your RA, your professors, and your “Good Girl” reputation, you’re ready to let loose.

But be careful, ladies, because there’s still plenty of ways that your spring break behavior can come back to haunt you. Read More »

Gossip and rumors are main staples on college campuses across the nation, and the website Juicy Campus (which was recently shut down), shows just how far people are willing to go to spread gossip. At some point in everyone’s life, gossip comes up – good or bad. Gossip, in moderation, can be just another thing, but in a culture that obsesses about pop culture and dishing dirt (think of websites like Perez Hilton), the fixation of dishing dirt about someone else isn’t going away any time soon.

Although many of us love to gather on Monday nights to watch Gossip Girl and watch the scandals of the Upper East Side unfold, no one likes it when their own personal life is exposed in the cafeteria over wilted lettuce or when private information rolls off the lips of classmates before the professor starts the class. While gossip may seem like something that comes and goes, it can leave its dirty scars behind all too often.

Maybe because it’s an all-women’s college and women often use each other to bring others down, or maybe it is the size of the university, but the Hollins rumor mill never seems to cease on campus. It constantly peeks its nasty little head around the corner for students that least expect it. Whether it hurts friendships, ruins reputations, or isolates students from campus events — gossip can cause tremendous damage. Read More »

You know, I didn’t really think there was a substantial amount of damage to survey this Thanksgiving on the Upper-East Side. In fact, tonight’s Gossip Girl episode was more like a slice of pumpkin pie than a carving station. Even Nate’s dad getting handcuffed and taken to jail was quite the heartfelt moment, as far as FBI’s most wanted list goes. Oops, did I just ruin that plotline for you? Read More »

So you meet a guy. You think he’s cute. You’re drunk; he’s drunk. You make something up – be it your name, your history, the fact that you go to the school that you are in fact visiting…

You don’t really think it matters – it’s not like you are gonna see this kid again. But then you do. The next morning. You keep the lie going, digging yourself deeper into a hole. Why make it awkward? And how do you explain the lies, anyway?

Then it gets worse. He calls/Facebooks you. He’s actually into you and wants to see you again. WTF? What do you do? Do you tell him you lied? Do you keep the lie going? Do you attempt to come clean? If so, how do you explain it all?

So many questions.

And I need answers.

What do you think?

This weekend is the only thing that stands between me and Chace Crawford.

Of course, I’m talking about the season premiere of Gossip Girl, which airs Monday, September 1 at 8:00 on the CW Network.

Since my life pretty much sucks– I’m not currently sleeping with anyone, I’m spending my “new clothes” money on speeding tickets, and I can barely afford my daily latte, let alone an extra-dry martini or a burlesque business venture–I’m looking forward on living vicariously through Dan, Jenny, Serena, Blair, Chuck, and, oh yes- Nate.

When GG left us at the beginning of the summer (which feels like eons ago), Serena’s brother, Eric, had just come out of the closet; Georgina had stopped into town just long enough to break up Serena and Dan; Chuck briefly scraped together an ounce of morale, only to eye-f*ck Amelia, Lily’s new interior designer; Blair hopped a plane with some random dude; and it seems that Serena and Nate and Dan and Vanessa were left to hang out for the summer. Read More »

Ending a relationship with someone, no matter how long you’ve dated, is never an easy thing. You have to face someone and tell them – in more or less words – that you don’t want to be with them anymore. For many, it can be quite devastating to the heart (not to mention, the ego).

So, how do you deal?

Some go for the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” excuse. It makes sense; it’s always easier to come up with some reason that conveniently puts the blame on you rather than telling your soon-to-be ex that he really isn’t that funny and you’d rather stab your eyes out with a fork than hear another one of his lame jokes. And, sure, by doing so, you save face and spare their feelings, but ultimately, you’re not being completely honest if you can’t come out and tell them exactly why you’re ending it.

If I’ve ever had to break up with someone, I always try to be as honest as possible, but keep his or her feelings in mind. For example, when my ex and I of four years were falling apart (and even though I still loved him at the time) I knew I had to cut the cord. When I sat him down to discuss why we needed to break up, I was honest: we were killing each other, fighting all the time and I knew it wasn’t going to get any better, ever.

It was an incredibly hard conversation to have, but after 4 years, I felt he deserved that respect. Read More »