Hurlstone In Progress: I will never try to be ‘cool’ again – it was embarrassing

When I started university in the warm September of 2024, I was determined to shed my school self. No more nerdy try-hard who ate her gluten-free packed lunch in the art room while polishing off coursework. No more the girl who actually cared about her attitude to learning and grades (seriously, why did I care about that?). It was time for the new me.

I wanted to channel the type of girl who always looked ready for the day: tidy room, tidy hair, and sensible, feature-enhancing makeup. I wanted to look like I was effortlessly thriving. The trouble was, I had to try really hard to look effortless.

I was attempting to be laid-back. This is the complete opposite of my persona, which is more perpetual anxiety and annoyance. My endeavours to appear ‘laid-back’ led to some unfortunate, toe-curling moments of embarrassment. Maybe now they don’t seem so bad, but at the time, they felt like crushing blows that risked revealing ‘art-room lunch girl’ again. In the end, this new persona didn’t make me magnetic to fellow freshers – it just made me weird.

Worse still, I became so anxious about looking top-notch at all times that I refused to leave my room without makeup on. This made showering a military operation

I decided that heavier makeup, which I had never done before, would be essential to my new look and cool girl essence. My dry face skin did not take well to this. Due to my general lack of knowledge about makeup, and the fact that most of it was out of date, it would begin to crumble off my face in chunks resembling dead fruit flies over the course of the day. Worse still, I became so anxious about looking top-notch at all times that I refused to leave my room without makeup on. This made showering a military operation. At first, I had full operational success. No one had seen me going to or exiting the shower.

However, one night, after some flatmates had ventured out to an unknown location for pres, I snuck to the shower, donning only my pink shower cap and a light blue towel, unfortunately stained with Pepsi Max after I’d used it to mop up a spillage. I emerged from the shower in a puff of steam, damp and overheating, just in time for a corridor conference. I was spotted in all my glory. Horror.

One thing about me is that I am absolutely not built for being too hot. If I begin to overheat, a frenzy overtakes me and I either faint or become even angrier than my base level. Saunas are really not for me. Maybe I’ll do 10 seconds after a cold dip, but 15 minutes in the company of three boys from my flat at the beginning of Week 2 – never again.

I was decomposing in the insurmountable heat. Fainting in front of this group would have been an aura loss so catastrophic that there would be no coming back from it

I don’t know why I saw the sauna as an opportunity to prove my coolness, but the 15 minutes became something I needed to survive no matter what. Unfortunately, this sauna death challenge coincided with my period, and I was wearing a pad large enough to cushion a fall. By minute 10, my vision was fading fast, and I was decomposing in the insurmountable heat. Fainting in front of this group would have been an aura loss so catastrophic that there would be no coming back from it.

I had no choice but to blast myself in a cold shower outside the sauna to regain my vision and a normal body temperature. In the literal heat of the moment, I had forgotten about the pad I was wearing, which I had just showered in. It now had the appearance of a seriously engorged adult nappy. I had to make a run for the changing rooms, leaving the group I was trying to impress, while hoping the pad wouldn’t give way. For some reason, I find this specific moment the hardest to recount. Maybe because it’s less slapstick and more smash-your-head-against-the-wall cringeworthy.

On the second night of uni, new people arrived in my flat. I was trying to keep myself in conversations while also maintaining a slight flirtatious presence, so when someone mentioned Cigarettes After Sex, I jumped in. Breezily saying, “Oh, I really love them,” in an attempt to become more involved in their conversation and, of course, to appear cool.

The strangest thing was, I got so obsessed with being cool, I even wanted my own mum to think I had morphed into some it girl, so I avoided talking to anyone about all the things that really weren’t going so well

This was a catastrophic mistake, as I only actually knew two of their songs. The flatmates began to quiz me on my favourite album, along with general questions about the band. I had no idea. My mind was blank. They saw through me, even looked at each other and chuckled. After this interaction, I drank as much as possible to ease my anxieties post this traumatic moment. The rest of the night is a mystery.

For half of my first term, I didn’t speak to my mum as much as I wanted to. I thought it made me independent and grown-up. In reality, I had so many things, every detail of my day, that I was desperate to tell her. The strangest thing was, I got so obsessed with being cool, I even wanted my own mum to think I had morphed into some it girl, so I avoided talking to anyone about all the things that really weren’t going so well. I managed to prioritise other people’s unknown opinions over calling my own mother, which, to be clear, absolutely no one was monitoring. A weird and sad moment in my history.

Pretending to be someone I wasn’t was exhausting. Like some kind of terrible amateur theatre – an excruciating watch. The result? I didn’t really find my people, because my people probably wouldn’t have been charmed by my impression of a Cigarettes After Sex superfan with a crumbling face of bad makeup and a sauna-induced near-death experience. Instead, my first year was a masterclass in being a worse, duller, more strained version of myself. The kind of person you’d edge away from at a pres, muttering “She seems…nice” before swiftly conversing with someone else.

Being myself might cause some awkward silences. Fine. People might edge away – but the right ones won’t. And crucially, they won’t trap me in a sauna.