The struggle of being pale at a southern school

Going to the University of Florida comes with what, to some, is the benefit of living in almost constant sunshine. Days can be spent casually lounging by Broward Beach absorbing your daily dose of vitamin D while improving your coveted tan. However, to a select, unfortunate few of us, the sun is less friend and more foe.

I constantly find myself marveling at how so many people can walk away from a day of sunbathing, without a drop of sunscreen mind you, with an even, golden tan. While I am cursed to waste my families hard earned money on SPF 100 unless I want to spend the rest of the semester closely resembling the bricks on Century Tower.

Overcast days are to be anticipated and celebrated when you have pale skin

Contrary to popular belief, students at UF who are pale, are in fact, not vampires. It’s a question we receive often while at school, and if you’ve lived in Florida for most of your life like I have, it’s a question you’re used to.  Though, like vampires, we do not make a habit out of basking in the light of the sun, we are no where near as romanticized as our blood sucking brethren.

“Why are you so pale?” and “Do you ever go outside?” become questions that we field with relative ease after a life time of being dramatically pale, and eventually being pale just becomes a part of your personality, that interesting fact we use in the first day of class introduction games.

When you try to tan but turn into a lobster

Perhaps the cruelest part of being so pale is going to football games, the ultimate Fall pastime, that often turn against us without warning. One minute the stadium is blissfully shaded by a heroic cloud blocking the sun, and the next it has moved on, leaving us prey to the sun’s harsh rays. While sunglasses and sunblock can be life savers to us weak skinned individuals, it’s night games that are our true saviors. Being able to enjoy the game sans sunlight is a gift after enduring the dreaded noon games.

Night games are a gift and should be treated as such

While having to fear the sun is a major drawback of having pale skin, it is most certainly not the only one. Trips down the makeup aisle in Target can become nightmarish, when they run out of ivory shaded foundation you ask yourself “What have I done to deserve this?” There is nothing worse than discovering that the lightest shade of concealer in stock is “Buff” when clearly you can only pull off “fair”. The struggle doesn’t end there though, we pale people must also live with the fear that we will never be able to properly pull of that bright coral lipstick or the neon colored eye shadow, its natural pallets for us all the way.

So burnt it hurts to walk

Being in the sun here at UF is a year-round occurrence, which makes flaunting your alarmingly pale skin something of an oddity in these parts. It’s a bit unpleasant to live in the sunshine state with skin that revolts every time you’re in direct sunlight for a span of more than fifteen minutes, but we wouldn’t trade our time here at UF for any amount of freedom from the omnipresent sun.

While day games are great for impromptu stadium photo ops, they are still our worst enemies

Like it or not your paleness sets you a part, and less often than you think in a negative way. Of course going to a school that boasts of its year round sunshine does have its drawbacks in regards to your fragile skin, but what you’re gaining here at UF outweighs the irritation of a little sunburn every now and again.