TABInsider: Frep’ it or forget it?

Back in June, we were all inundated with official sounding e-mails that pleaded with us, in the way that JCR autocrats do, to apply to be a ‘FREP’. From that moment, everything changed. My friends, a group of civilized, easy-going students suddenly revealed their true, competitive colours.

This was something that everyone could apply for. We all saw how much fun our Freps had had last year. It was a golden chance to relive our own Fresher’s Week. I chose to sit back and watch.

It quickly became clear this was an unusually wise decision on my part.

Oh the joy…or is it all an act?

Oh the joy…it’s all an act

I avoided the panicked heart palpitations when one overly keen girl outdid the normal collection of pathetic offerings with a 3D papier-mâché application.

I didn’t lower myself to the not-so subtle bribes and the strategic sex with executive members of the JCR who carry the vague smell of college corridors with them wherever they go.

But, I also passed up the chance to achieve the hallowed rank of ‘Frep’, the honour of being given the responsibility of bringing new life into our absurd little bubble.

Unlike me, those who had suffered the terrible sex and common room corruption would reap the rewards in an epic Fresher’s week.

Or so they thought.

“I sound like a man” said one of my female Frep friends to me a few days ago. It was Tuesday, two days in, and this “man voice” could be heard all around Durham.

Corridors across the university, the home of sexual corruption?

But the worst was yet to come. When Boots ran out of Berroca, that’s when shit got real. “What?!” I hear you Freshers cry, “but they’ve been so full of life around us!”

Bollocks. They’re acting. While they form the enthusiastic support network for your ill-advised drinking habits, they’re grabbing naps whenever, wherever – cafés, landing floors, even on the loos in Klute.

It’s why they were so keen to take their fresh meat back to college nice and early, they desperately wanted to a quick shag and a good sleep.

But there’s more. There’s always the Frep who looks at you funny, doesn’t smile properly when you’re in the room, who you think hates you but you’ll never know for sure. They hate you. They hate you more than anything else in the world and everyone else knows it.

“This superbitch who I knew from hockey is now here being a super bitch and all the Freps hate her and I feel bad because I kind of encouraged her to come…” said one regretful fresher.

It’s a mighty task, pretending to like people that deep down you despise – you take them to dinner, pretend to listen to their generic gap year bullshit, try and find them someone to make friends with, clean up their sick and carry them home – because you have to, it’s part of ‘the job’.

It’s a strange thing, ‘Frepping’. My housemate summed it up quite eloquently “‘who can think of anything worse than volunteering to stay sober for a week while encouraging strangers to get f***ed?”

The JCR loving, over optimistic, Durham darlings among you will tell me he clearly didn’t get ‘chosen’ (he didn’t), and you’ll tell me how wonderfully rewarding it was and you’ll tell me he’s bitter.

But as bitter as he may be, he didn’t find himself walking home with blue balls at 4am as a whiff of a quaddie rose unceremoniously up off his gaudy, vomit soaked Frep shirt – feeling vaguely liked he’s just been tango-ed.