"It's Not What It Looks Like!"

Blair Dingler, Texas A&M University

Life as a Vet Student, Honorable Mention

As my first year has come to an end, one of my best pieces of advice for future vet students is to find friends as quickly as possible. Spending multiple hours at school learning endless amounts of information is a grueling task, and my friends are definitely the reason I made it out of first year alive. With that said, our friendship hasn’t been smooth sailing from the start. I’m here to tell the story of how social media and iPhones can betray even the most innocent of actions.

After three long days of orientation, all I wanted to do was relax at home. I was hanging out with Heather, whom I had met at a welcome dinner earlier that week and instantly clicked with. I was requesting anyone and everyone in my class to be my friend on Facebook. Shortly after sending Manny (fellow first year) a friend request, he messaged me and told me that he was going to Chimy’s that night with some vet school friends if I wanted to join. Heather and I decided to go and began inviting other people we had met that week. She decided to send a Facebook message to Ben (her first vet school friend) telling him of our evening plans. We were both excited to widen our circle of friends and get to know our classmates better.

We got ready for the night and headed to Chimy’s to meet up with everyone. Ben had never responded to Heather’s message so we assumed he wasn’t attending. Upon arrival, we were surprised to see Ben already there and sitting at a table with Manny and Cameron (first year as well as Manny’s roommate). We all said “Hey!” to one another and started chatting. As I was talking with Manny and Cameron, Heather approached Ben and asked why he hadn’t responded to her message. Ben, who is one of the nicest guys I know, wanted to defend his honor. He hadn’t ignored her message, so he checked his phone to see if he had gotten it. He promptly unlocked his phone with Heather looking over his shoulder, which was a mistake. His phone unlocked to a zoomed in photo of Heather’s face. Zoomed in. On Heather’s face. What he hadn’t remembered is that he had told the guys Heather was coming to Chimy’s. Ben had showed them her profile picture so they would know who she was and had locked his phone with the picture on the screen.

As you can guess, Ben was mortified. When we talked about the incident at a later date, he said he thought his heart stopped beating for a second. Heather, surprised, only uttered a shocked “Oh!” Ben immediately began backtracking, saying,  “It’s not what it looks like! I can explain!” He then proceeded to clarify why a zoomed in picture of her face was the first thing on screen upon unlocking his phone, and they both laughed it off.

Even though I wasn’t directly involved in the situation, it’s still one of my top five favorite stories from first year. It sealed their fate as friends and helped solidify us as a group, but I wouldn’t suggest trying to make friends that way as it can lead to a very awkward encounter.