Growing up, I was always the good girl. The one who always was at home with her nose in a book and did her homework (most of the time). I wasn't ever the star scholar or athlete, but I did what I was supposed to do. Because of this, it was hard for me to make friends. I was nice and all, but I was too picky. Once I found my friends, they were good for me. I got a bigger view of the world, but didn't enter the party scene or the popular crowd, and I was perfectly content with that. My friends would joke "oh, look how innocent Erin is" when I didn't know what this one term meant, or didn't understand the dirty joke, but it was all fun and games. They didn't really mean anything by it. To be honest, most of them were no less innocent than me. Sometimes, we even judged some of the more "experienced" girls at our school. It was silent, of course, and I am now ashamed of it, but it was part of growing up. Now that I look back on it, some of us judged out of jealousy. Often, I just left myself out of it, I didn't care what others were getting to in our spare time, so I just kept my nose in my book until I could move on with my life, or I guess start one.
College changed the game. It was a fresh new start. Labels didn't matter and you got to create your own new identity. I noticed something different. There was more pressure. More pressure to experiment, more pressure to be wild and more pressure to be irresponsible while you still can. For some, this was an internal pressure and, for some like me, this was an external one. I did feel the need to step out of my comfort zone but only to an extent. Unlike many others, I didn't want to get drunk, go to a party and hook up with the next available breathing male. Not that this is something for me to judge on, only God can judge you. The irony is that many who are like me and choose to not engage in certain activities are judged because of that decision. It is a personal choice to stay on the sidelines. To be fair, these instances for me were few and far between. Being at a small Christian school, that type of culture doesn't exist in as large of a scale, and where it does exist, there is very little pressure to participate. My friends at school have always been supportive of me and any decision I have wanted to make, but hearing things from other friends made me realize this shaming to be more and more of a reality. They warn us about peer pressure in high school but you don't realize how less obvious it is. Sometimes, people you thought would never try to pressure you, do. Don't let anyone shame you into doing something you don't want to. And make sure that they know that when you say no, you mean it.
