The Best Skill I Learned at College: Making a Better Bitch Face

I have always been a bitch, but Sarah Lawrence College taught me how to act like a cunt. When I accepted a scholarship at the liberal arts school where celebrities send their gay children, I expected to learn writing skills. My writing did sharpen at Sarah Lawrence, but the school's greatest gift was a better bitch face—a torch passed to me and other students by upperclassmen.

Sarah Lawrence oozes of bitchiness. Most kids wear black—the campus joke is "even the squirrels wear black"—and students regularly walk past people they know without saying hi. Where most people ignoring a friend or one-night stand simply look the other way, Sarah Lawrence girls and gay boys typically look at the people they're avoiding, staring through them.

"I had an ex friend who literally looked through me over the salad bar in Bates [dining hall]," said Sarah, a 2010 alum.

"I was walking past Andrews parking lot towards Heimbolt, [the art building]," said Pearl, another 2014 alum. "[A friend] actively looked over my head as I was waving [at him]. Then [he] conveniently got a call and then took out a book. Lastly, when I couldn't take it, I asked him what his deal was. He deadass crossed the street."

This practice is so common on campus, students call it "Sarah Lawrencing." It's impossible to know when the practice originated, but the college has a long history of bitchy alums and dropouts. (Until 1968, Sarah Lawrence only accepted female students, so most of them are women.) Sarah Lawrence dropout Yoko Ono is often accused of breaking up the Beatles, and Carrie Fisher, another dropout, spends most of the the original Star Wars trilogy making snide comments and shooting bitch face at men. Two Barbara Walters biographies detail Walters' bitchy college behavior. In her memoir Audition, Walters describes living in a dorm called Titsworth. ("You can imagine the jokes, but I loved the name," she writes.) Walters has said she spent her four years flip-flopping between doctor and lawyer boyfriends, treating men like disposable tampons. When she wasn't using men, Walters allegedly sunbathed on the roof of Tits with a "chic, sophisticated, tough-talking, hard-drinking young woman who went under the unusual nickname of 'Mike,' " according to Jerry Oppenheimer's biography of her. Perhaps nothing describes Sarah Lawrence girls' attitude better than 1965 grad Carly Simon's "You're So Vain."

Most friends and family members would say my attitude could have gotten less bitchy in college. Where in most families older siblings bully little brothers, I tortured my older siblings. Since pre-school, my family has called me "Bitchell" as a nickname. As a teen, I worked hard to maintain my bad reputation.

"You were literally Regina George," my older brother Tyler said. "You would air everyone's dirty laundry at inappropriate times in a very malicious tone for no reason." I regularly yelled at Tyler, who was clearly gay like me, that I would disown him if he came out of the closet: "Being gay is my thing!" I shouted. Arguably thanks to my bullying, Tyler waited ten years to come out.

"Your personality was incredibly aggressive and attack-like," said Adam, a high school classmate, in an email. "I always felt a sense of dominance coming from you."

To my friends and family's shock, college made me cuntier. I started wearing all black and eventually Sarah Lawrencing boys I had fucked. I learned the skill from a senior. Roger, as we'll call him, liked to blow twinky freshmen. One night, I met him at a dance party at the Blue Room, Sarah Lawrence's atrocious, un-airconditioned version of a student union. Only freshmen attend these awful dance parties, but Roger showed up, dry humped, and kissed at least four freshmen boys, including me.

At one point, he lined us up in a dry version of a daisy chain. When the DJ turned off the music, he took the other twinks and me to a dining hall. He bought us pretzels, hummus, and french fries. Step-by-step, over his version of "dinner," he recounted how Sarah Lawrence kids have perfected bitch faces. They either frown and look above your head or stare through you, as if you weren't there, without blinking.

"After you hook up with people here, they won't look at you," he said. "It's called Sarah Lawrencing."

A few weeks later, I ran into Roger in the locker room. I had joined the Sarah Lawrence swim team, although I didn't know how to swim, because I "felt like doing something crazy." As Roger slipped off his wetsuit, I stared at his ass. He spotted me in the mirror. Roger lifted his head and looked through me. I had been Sarah Lawrenced.

At first, boys Sarah Lawrencing pissed me off, but within six months, I started Sarah Lawrencing boys I blew and the rude lesbians in my queer theory classes. Fellow freshmen also started participating in the process. Some were taught, I presume, but others said they learned it by experiencing it and then asking an upperclassman what had happened.

Throughout college, my day-to-day bitchiness increased, reaching its peak Oxford, England, where I studied abroad during my junior year. "I think [the bitchy behavior at Sarah Lawrence] was a reaction to being the mean kid [in high school]," my brother Tyler explained. "You got to SLC and still wanted to be the mean gay kid, but you had more competition, so you stepped your game up in order to still shock and offend people."

A few years later, I recognize my immaturity and vapidness, but when controlled, my bitchiness and Sarah Lawrencing has given me a boost in life; it's also helped me cope with trauma. A few years ago, I got very drunk and went home with a guy. I said no to anal, but he repeatedly put his tip in my ass. We travel in the same social circles in Brooklyn. My senior year, I repeatedly ran into him at crowded dorm parties. One night, I had to squeeze past him to enter a party house that had one entryway, but I was able to Sarah Lawrence him and have a fun night without any uncomfortable situations.

Looking back, bitchiness has always served my interests. On the first day of junior year chemistry in high school, a group of jocks started calling my gay classmate a faggot. The teacher laughed; my heart rate increased. I thought I was finally going to be bullied. Midway through class, a jock named Pablos turned to me. "Are you looking at me because you're hot and want to kiss me?" he said, taunting me. Ignoring my instinct, I rolled my eyes. "You have terrible acne, and I would never fuck you," I said. The room went silent. A pause. Then the jocks all pointed at Pablo: "You got burned by the gay kid!" they shouted. Moving forward, the jocks left me alone.

Going to Sarah Lawrence has made me a better bitch, a cunt, and it's helped me. Or as Tyler put it: "I think you are so aggressively mean as a defense mechanism."