Scraping at Oxford

By Lex Garcia

Of course the main problem with the nightclub was not the music, not the smell, not the pissy bouncer, all of which were annoyances; no, the main issue was the people. These were not the people one comes to Oxford to meet. They are, in fact, the same type of people one sees at the seedy nightclubs in American college towns. The men all have half beards. They are all between 5’7 and 6’0 but none of them are by any stretch of the imagination tall. They are not all unattractive, but not one is, in your estimation, attractive. They outnumber the girls, all of whom are dressed in the same Shein/Zara works; by about 2 to 1. The ceilings are too low, and the bars too crowded. When you go to get a drink, you stand at the end of the bar where it’s least crowded. You wait about 10 minutes for the British boy to stop harassing the bartender. He gets what he wants. You get a double vodka Red Bull, knowing it won’t improve your time there, but it’s enough to say you tried. They dance a bit better than the last nightclub you went to. At least they’re moving. The other place they were mostly just standing and swaying a bit. Still you feel the prevailing notion that everyone around you seems to just be pretending to have fun, participating in a mass role play of what they assume a fun night out to be. A poor facsimile of the ‘true’ nightclub experience, an experience you won’t be permitted to have until you’re older, wiser, richer, or get more attractive friends. No one will be pretending there. Or perhaps you just don’t like clubbing. That might be it. 

Four hours prior to this, you nurse a jungle juice at the student bar. A girl asks if you’re asexual. You say no. She says you give asexual vibes. Unfortunately that’s not the first time you’ve heard this. You say you’re not, you just have low self esteem. The people around you attempt to comfort you. “No, you’re cool.” “You have good hair.” You say thanks and get another drink, sufficiently uncomfortable. 

The concept of a student bar is alien to you. A fully functioning bar fourteen paces from your dormitory, inhabited and run solely by students. It’s a mirage, a window into a sort of collegiate world that has its shit together far better than the Americans. The students are gonna get shitfaced anyway, why not put bars in their dorms? Cut out the middleman. The drinks are ridiculously cheap as well; 4 pounds for a cocktail, 2 for shot, 1.30 for a pint. Unfortunately, as conceptually impressive as the bar is, you are still surrounded by students, students you seem to either dislike or think dislike you. 

The fantasy of visiting Oxford is one of acceptance into a higher, more sophisticated echelon of collegiate society, one American universities can only imitate. Part of you expected to be handed a cigar and a velvet smoking jacket and led to some secret subterranean student lounge with some future heads of state and descendants of royalty, trading witticisms with your fellow Mensa members in aged leather upholstery. Despite the campus’ intoxicating old world veneer, this induction into the academia illuminati does not happen to you. Instead, you smoke your third Marlboro Touch and make small talk with a string bean philosophy major: 

“Who’s your favorite philosopher?” 

“Plato” he says “he was the first philosopher pretty much.”

“I know about his shadow thing.”

“His what?”

“His shadow thing, what do you call it, the allegory of the cave?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I like that part.”

“Yeah.” 

“Do you like Kierkegaard?”

“Yeah, I haven’t read much of him, but he’s cool.” 

“Yeah I like his stuff. I don’t like Nietzsche, much too negative for me.”

“You’re telling me you’re a cigarette smoking film student from New York and you don’t like Nietzsche?”

“I am telling you that – I am not my stereotype. I’m my own person.”

He laughs politely. The conversation stalls and you both move on amicably to other partners. He goes back to his room around 10:30. Intellectual elites are a lot more boring in person. Still, he seems to be the sort of best case scenario here, the person you could most see yourself being. Of course you wouldn’t be him, even if you went here, you’d be you. But you can project onto him far easier than most of the other people here. 

You came here to meet Brits but so far you’ve been inundated with American accents. You’re visiting a friend who’s a visiting student at Oxford, and subsequently all her friends are other visiting students. Yale, Harvard, Princeton. You suppose it was naive of you to think people everywhere weren’t predisposed to sticking to their own kind. In the States, being around this many Ivy Leaguers would seem significant. You’d want to know SAT scores, essay topics, how similar it is to The Social Network. But here you don’t give a shit. Here, you’re all the same. American interlopers, the tourist class, bored of your own staleness. 

2 hours earlier, you attend a Friday night Shabbat service, partially to meet people but mostly for the free dinner. You’re not Jewish but you wear a kippah anyway; you can easily pass, you’ve been told. You meet a local Oxfordian who enjoys talking with you and John about films. You have a mutual affinity for Punch Drunk Love. He’s a sweet soul, a few years older than college age. A bit lonely maybe. Somewhat cringe but who isn’t? Is it a coincidence he’s the best person you’ve met here and he’s not a student? You duck behind the prayer barrier, as technology is not allowed, and exchange Instagrams. You follow his photography account. He offers to come down to London and see a movie sometime. You are almost certain this will never come to pass. He’s far too sincere for a place like this. 

The next day, you eat fish cakes in the harsh morning light of one of the more modest Oxford dining halls (only like, four 17th century oil paintings). Flavorless russet potatoes and broccoli are your sides. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. Purely platonic food. You say goodbye to your friend and hug it out. She says there’s a ball coming up and she could find you a date if you wanted to go. You smile nervously and say you’ll think about it, knowing you won’t. You’ve had your Oxford experience, and as tempting as an ornate ball in the halls of the oldest university in the Western world sounds, it will undoubtedly still be a college party full of college students. Kids, really, role playing at what they might one day turn into, insecurely fitting their square pegs in the wrong shaped holes. Sometimes you feel like every single person in your generation is wearing the cut off skin of another person and waiting to be found out. It’s a bit uncomfortable, this skin suit of yours. That’s what you object to most. Even at Oxford, college is still college.