Resolution #2: Students, privacy and the joys of small city living
September
and back-to-school are the real beginning of a new year for me. In that spirit
I’ve been making back to school resolutions. Here is one more.
This year I
resolve to dance more and care less about what my students think. Saturday
night I spent the late hours of the evening enjoying the last student-free
night (well, not quite, there were of course students there but still nowhere
near as many as there will be soon) at
our local GLBT bar. This being a small city there is only one mixed bar, no
women’s bar, and that’s both a good and bad thing. The good news is that
everyone is welcome. The age range is amazing, from teens trying to sneak in
with fake ID to sixty year old members of long established couples. 40-something me fits
in. In a small space, they cram in pool tables, space for chatting, space for people watching and a good-sized dance floor. I also love that I can dance away without worrying about people looking at me.
I’m shy and nervous in the bar setting and it takes a bit for me to relax but
when there are 6’5 drag queens in gold sequins and stunningly beautiful young
men and women dancing on elevated platforms I can’t imagine anyone really
notices me. The bar has a warm comfortable community feeling—all welcome,
including on the weekend, curious straight folks or visitors who just like the
atmosphhere for dancing. It has a very predictable playlist, a mix of trendy dance tunes, old disco, and pride anthems. It’s also extremely visible. The front of the bar opens on to the street and the rainbow flag flying as well as the patrons who spill out on to the street to smoke make it quite clear what the club is about. While most everyone agrees that the club’s very open and explicit presence is a good thing it hasn’t always been safe for its patrons as this 2002 article tells us.
Safety and the oh-so predictable music side, the other worry for me has always been that I can’t really escape the student population. This year I resolve to care less about gossip and to enjoy the company of the GLBT students without worrying so much about the lines between faculty and students. I remind myself that they have much more interesting people to talk about than me. The problem is though that I was one of those undergraduates who speculated constantly about her professors’ love lives and had crusuhes on almost all of them, at one point or another. It was only when I realized I could BE a philospher, I didn’t have to be a philospher’s girlfriend, that the fantasies stopped. It should have been a clue that in these fantasy relationships with my profs what we did was stay up all night and talk about ideas and arguments! Of course, there are prudential reasons for not relying on students for friendship and companionship that I don’t think the students ever quite understand. They are often only here for a year or two and then move on, mostly to larger more exciting cities (and who can blame them?). As a younger faculty member I found most of my friends among the grad student populations–we were all close to the same age–but having to make new friends each year is tough and as I’ve settled in I’ve found friends from other departments. And some of these friends will even join me for a night out dancing.
