Student column- Embedded reporter details sleep troubles

By Caleb Chin

Guys don’t like sharing things with each other. Especially with guys we don’t know.

Especially a bed.

Maybe it’s developed over time from society standards. Maybe it’s innate. Whatever. We just don’t. This is a gender so obsessed with our own personal territory that we become paranoid if someone gets too close at the urinals.

So I wasn’t too happy when I found out that there’d only be two beds for four guys, — two of whom I don’t know at all and the third I know as a weak acquaintance. The situation wouldn’t be nearly as bad if I knew any of them as a good friend, where there was an established history and background.

It’s not like I hate meeting new people. But the awkward level goes off the charts when your first day of meeting someone new ends with sleeping in the same bed. As far as I know, none of us are prostitutes.

And our room isn’t the only one with a bedding predicament. To see who gets their own bed and who gets the floor, some guys are operating by the first come, first serve rule, while others adhere to the tried and true system of drawing straws. If it worked for the Freedom crew in “Armageddon,” it’ll work for three high schoolers.

And one unfortunate guy is getting the short end of the straw every night in a room with two other older campers who require him to change beds every night. That must feel prostitute-y.

Our room is still trying to figure out what we’re doing. The general idea is to never share a bed. Two guys are always on the floor. Two very, very, unhappy guys.

But the more I think about it, the more I can’t help but wonder why guys are so uncomfortable with sharing a bed with each other.

Gender has become such a big deal in our society that we spend all this time and effort emphasizing our sex. And because societal movements and technological advancements have opened the doors for transsexuals, homosexuals and cross dressers, people feel more desperate to assert their straight sexual identity.

To tell the truth, I don’t really like thinking about it too much. I don’t like falling into the approved, learned patterns of masculinity. It just seems too indoctrinated.

That said. I’ll be happy to have the bed to myself tonight.

Caleb Chin is a senior at McPherson High School and a student in the advanced writers class at the Flint Hills Publication Workshop.