Your audacity is touching but no fucking way are you getting my May Ball ticket

I should make it clear at the outset that I am by no means a fun person.

My jokes are terrible and my only hobby is squash, which I play badly. But for a socially inept NatSci things had been going impressively well.

The swaps with other colleges. The invites to formals. The flash in their eyes when I mentioned I went to John’s. The lean in and the casual continuation of a conversation that should, to be frank, have stopped five minutes ago. The prompt adding on Facebook.

I will confess to not being particularly charismatic. But Cambridge had been sailing smoothly. Suspiciously smoothly.

It all began to make sense at the end of Michaelmas when I received the first messages.

Nice to hear from you.

I was flattered. Hey you. Hey you girl. I like you. You’re nice. You’re pretty. Nice to hear from you after three months. Haven’t seen you since that one time Barry threw his shoes over Orgasm Bridge and we gazed at King’s Chapel while he floundered in the water of the Cam and you laughed at my joke about your surname sounding like a Greek island. Thanks for liking all my profile pictures.

😉

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Oh.

Wait.

I see now.

Literally they even have churros.

No.

I’m very flattered, Some Girl. But no. I understand you’re desperate to go to what you mistakenly think is the Sixth Best Party in the World according to Vogue/TIME Magazine/your college parents.

LITERALLY THE SIXTH BEST PARTY IN THE WORLD. OR SEVENTH. DEPENDING ON WHICH DUBIOUS SOURCE YOU’RE SPEAKING TO.

But as much as you’ve made a limited effort to build up a tenuous friendship with my person, I have also, somehow, managed to accumulate within the same time period a number of genuine friends which exceeds the number of allocated guest tickets I have. Wow.

If I had a list, which I don’t, you would probably be in at # 22. And I would rank you lower if I could.

This would actually be fine and, to be fair, these nasty thoughts are a horrible reaction to someone who can’t really be blamed for the fact they don’t have the same access to the same champagne-filled extravaganza that I do.

So I apologise to most of you.

But no. Some of you insist on pushing the envelope.

This is where you cross a line in the complex world of social media. Prior to this stage, you were merely asking for a spare ticket, a highly coveted commodity that I have earned by virtue of being a member of this illustrious college.

Now you are asking me to do exactly what you have just done to me to all of my friends, who are probably also being harassed and bribed by dozens of other desperate individuals.

Yes, you are literally asking me to do the dirty work for you.

You can fuck off to this place.

And grovel like this dude.

Whom I seriously respect, by the way.

#abovetheboard

Please leave me alone. And the 10 other people you’re probably bugging.