BY ISA FERNANDEZ

Smith Union: the perfect place to realize you missed the mailroom hours and play a round of ping pong instead of writing your research paper. We all love walking by the photo wall and seeing our friends posed for the perfect Bowdoin advertisement. But you may be wondering,“why haven’t I been on the wall?” The Bowdoin photographer is hard to miss, given how often they snipe the lone spikeball game on the quad or random group of POC friends doing work in HL. Maybe your friend group isn’t diverse enough. Maybe you weren’t wearing enough Bowdoin merch at the Colby game. 

Deep down, you know the real reason: It’s because you’re ugly. 

As someone who’s never been on the wall myself, I’ve struggled to come to terms with this realization. The first step was denial. I convinced myself I just kept missing the photographer at every single school-wide event I went to. “He must have been on the other side of the field” I would tell myself, knowing full well I saw the photographer make eye contact with me and turn the other way. 

Then there was the anger. I’m not proud to admit this, but I may or may not have approached the Bowdoin photographer and insinuated that he hated Hispanics and should lose his job. Randy may or may not have been called. 

Bargaining was next. I dressed solely in Bowdoin merch wherever I went. I hung out with the most diverse group of friends I could. I begged on my hands and knees for the photographer to take a silly picture of me walking across the quad. I’d even take being on the Bowdoin webpage for a day! It was all for nothing. I now have a restraining order against me, and the depression? It wasn’t pretty.

Finally, came acceptance. I’ve come to terms with the fact I won’t be on the wall. Sometimes, you’re just ugly, and that’s ok! Who cares about being in some stupid picture frame for a semester? I certainly don’t, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. (This article is me projecting, I would give my first-born to be on the Smith Union wall).