As college students, we've all been subject to the medieval torture tool that is the group discussion board.

As if responding to the original prompt wasn't bad enough, you usually have to, in 100-300 words, respond to another weary classmate, regardless of how good (or to be more realistic, painstakingly bad) their answer is.

Now, if you're like me, you either set a reminder to complete the discussion board at the oddest times (like in the middle of the day in between classes) because you know you'll forget otherwise. I'm not one of those people that can sit down and hit "submit" on 11:40 the night the post is due. Because of this, I'm usually the first person to respond to the prompt.

Every time I hit "submit" and change that "total posts" number from 0 to 1, a thought pops up in the back of my head:

"What do you do if your other group members forget to post?"

Thankfully, I've never had to worry about planning that out...

*Cue dramatic music*

... Until this past weekend.

Sit down, kids, and find out what happens when you respond to your own discussion board post.

Now, I'd like to preface this with the fact that I genuinely like my discussion group. They're all cool people who are super busy. We all forget to do assignments. There are no hard feelings here.

But there is no betrayal stronger than that of being abandoned in a GROUP discussion board. It's the college equivalent of being stranded in the desert as your rescue party leaves you with nothing but radio silence. It's painful.

Plus, I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything, but I provide decent content to respond to. I hit the word count, I use all the sources required, basically, I give you something *juicy* to reply to. I don't think you have to work too hard to respond to my posts.

But what happens if no one else posts... at all?

What dilemma of morals does this become? Do I get out of having to write a response at all? Do I try and wait out the response deadline to see if anyone else posts?

There's something almost philosophical about this. If someone posts in a group discussion board and no one is around to see it, does it really count?

Well, my answer is yes. You see, I decided to respond to myself, and here's why:

1. I'm a geek. Always have been. Always will be. I like overachieving, and this is no exception.

2. I genuinely enjoy this class and this prompt, so it wasn't going to be laborious to go the extra mile.

3. I realized I could be sarcastic, funny, and a little tongue-in-cheek and get away with it, something that can sometimes be rare in group discussion settings.

So here's what I originally posted (to preface, this is a gendered communication class discussing media examples of white and faux feminism):

And here's how I responded to myself:

Now I don't mean to brag, but the wordplay alone won me over when it came time to actually follow through and submit. In all seriousness, however, I actually did go to a rather personal place that I normally wouldn't have in a response to someone else. I was able to extend my original answer with a lot more freedom than I would have otherwise, and I enjoyed doing so.

Bonus:

Validation feels oh, so sweet.