I went abroad and can't stop cuffing my pants!

Abroad really changed me. I don't mean it changed me like it changed Beth Anne in your Psych class who went to Italy and now is "like super into wine." I mean that I simply can't stop cuffing my pants to a point where I might as well buy capris. It must've been something I ate there because all the other guys I saw had a hard triple cuff on both pant legs, and now I too am trapped rolling my jeans up to show off my ankles and my new all white shoes. You might say, "Nick, why don't you just not cuff your pants." But I can't. It's not a routine like brushing my teeth, and it's not an addiction like meth; this is just a part of who I am.

The European style of jean cuffing, or jéan-cuffain, demands that I cuff my jeans at least twice before I go out in public. In Europe, everyone did it. Moms, dads, babies, presidents. Usually people just talk about the cool clubs they went to, or the sights they saw after they return from abroad; however, I only want to know how to stop cuffing my jeans. All the hip Europeans did it, so I was compelled to take it up myself. Little did I know how it would take over my life. Slowly, every conversation I have devolves into how "sick abroad was" and how my jeans have to be cuffed. I adopted every aspect of abroad. I literally just smoked 1000 cigarettes. No joke, I cuffed my pants and when I stood up, I had already smoked 2 packs. I can't help it, abroad was sick.

In some sort of Faustian contract to look super Euro constantly, my ankles feature prominently in almost every outfit (I am still forced to cuff shorts, but only once to maximize “chill”). This impulse to cuff and smoke cigs and talk about clubs and tell people about how I smoked weed in Amsterdam has become my only defining feature. The hair on the sides of my head doesn’t even grow back anymore. I called an exorcist to pull this demon out of me, but when the priest searched for the demon, he went mad when the Euro demon subjected him to an eternity of torment as the demon droned on and on about all the cool trips he took, and how he “totally blended in with the Madrid locale” (he most certainly did not wearing his fraternity’s shirt and a backwards hat). So it seems I’m doomed to walk this Earth having people avoid me because they know exactly what I’m going to talk about to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved abroad, but at what cost? Sure, I could wear jorts unironically, and yeah, wine is pretty good, but do you know how weird cuffing your pants looks with long socks? I look like a dad about to walk through mud! And I don’t even like smoking cigarettes, I only started doing it because I thought it’d help me hit on Danish girls, but they only told me, “Dine bukser ser virkelig dum.” Do you even realize how ego-crushing it is to hear a 6’3” Viking goddess put you down like that? Sure, I don’t know any Danish, but their disapproving looks told me everything. Now, I just lounge in the Shooters balcony ripping sticks, and telling freshman girls how “lit” Madrid is.

I’m in an abroad-support group called Doing Ok Post-Europe, or D.O.P.E. for short. We engage in simulated small talk to work on avoiding mentioning Europe or cuffed jeans. It has been immensely helpful; soon I’ll be earning my Silver Star for not overtly pointing down to my pants during conversations. Then, I’ll move onto rolling down my jeans, but that just seems so far away at this point. I love the breeze against my lower legs, I enjoy not having to worry about hiking my pants up during floods, and I love the instant conversation starter it provides. I’m not ashamed of my cuffs, but I’m working on making a change. Abroad may have been better than Duke, but I don’t have to tell every single person in the Devine’s line about Ibiza, because they know how chill it is; this is the eighteenth time I’ve said it today.

Please, if you know someone who went abroad and claims it "totally changed" their worldview, let them know they're among friends. And when they smoke cigs because they "did all the time in London dude," tell them they don't need to cuff their jeans because we know how sick abroad was. You’ve already told me about that Avicii concert.

Nick Younger is a Trinity senior. His column, “Medical Professionals Hate Him!” runs on alternate Fridays.