EPSTEIN: Keep it to yourself, BU

It was 5 p.m., that usual time of day when freshmen shove into the elevators at Warren Towers after a hard day of class, eager for an early-evening date with their pillows. As I waited for my floor, two girls were conversing a little too loudly to ignore. One girl announced to the other that she had herpes, a fun fact she had learned after a trip to Student Health Services that morning. The other girl asked how she got it. “From Ben,” she confided.

“But — I slept with Ben,” the other shouted.

Now I’m no prude, but some conversations are meant for private quarters — barely how I would describe a sardine can disguised as an elevator carrying 11 people up to their respective floors in the second-largest non-military dormitory in the country. So I started to laugh. It’s a reaction I think most people would have given the circumstances. But rather than turning bright red with embarrassment, this girl was just angry. The tongue-lashing I proceeded to receive was less than pleasant.

What do you expect? You just discovered your cheating boyfriend gave you herpes — on an elevator. Give me a break. There’s something about public voyeurism that tickles our post-pubescent fancies. It’s incredible what we shameless college students will say aloud clearly within earshot of potential eavesdroppers. Often it’s a nonsensical mash-up of way too much disturbing information and situations that are actually quite amusing to hear.

There’s the girl on the cell phone on Marsh Plaza who is dating an ex-con but can’t figure out whether she should tell her police officer father before Thanksgiving (like he doesn’t already know). There’s the girl who broadcasts her feelings about her boyfriend’s physical abnormalities and wonders aloud whether she finds it sexy or repulsive. It’s not that she doesn’t love him. It’s just that she finds him kind of gross.

But this is what I’ve come to expect from my beloved Boston University community. We’re on a college campus, and sex and relationships are openly discussed. Sometimes people just lack the common sense to know when and when not to censor themselves. That’s why we have sites and Facebook groups like “Overheard at BU” to frequent and read what our comrades are saying these days. But sometimes, we jump past the line of an “over-share” into “just plain stupid.” Yet still, people are appalled when they realize someone has been listening.

Walking down Commonwealth Avenue, it’s impossible not to hear what is going on around you. Just the other day, I overheard this girl talking about housing selection — of course, I listen. I’m walking two feet beside her. She’s your typical uber-wealthy cookie-cutter BU girl: skinny jeans tucked into Ugg boots as she defies the laws of gravity with her oversized Hermes bag — it should topple her underweight-but-freakishly-tall stature over, but doesn’t — finished off with those huge sunglasses big enough to cool the entire state of Rhode Island 15 degrees on a hot summer day.

It’s not her appearance I have a problem with — I’m a hoity-toity Long Islander myself, and I understand the craving to outwardly express wealth. It’s girls like this, however, who give my sister and friends back home a bad name. She’s not just rich — she’s stupid.

“I’ve got like, um, like, number 15,000,” she gawks into her BlackBerry. She thinks she’s going to get a four-bedroom apartment in South Campus to pull her friends in to — a mathematical impossibility. So again, I find myself in a situation where I can’t help but listen. Again, I can’t help but laugh. And again, I find myself being ripped apart by Princess Louis Vuitton.

Now while common courtesy affords them a reasonable expectation of privacy, it’s interesting to see people try and push those “reasonable” boundaries. The girl on the elevator was livid when I reacted to her clearly unfortunate situation. We were in an elevator — should I have covered my ears and hummed Britney Spears’s “I’m a Slave 4 U” to myself until you were done? I think not. Do you, girl, act crazy whenever you step into small spaces with other people, on the off chance that you might hear something you aren’t supposed to? What about you, Comm. Ave. princess? Do you purposely walk to class avoiding anyone who is talking just in case one of them might say something personal?

If you don’t like the way you’re being received, don’t portray yourself in that manner. This extends far past the common sense involved in not shouting your deepest, darkest secrets across the dining hall. We live in a digital world. With Facebook and MySpace, we craft our images precisely the way we wish to be seen. What we put on our profiles is calculated to create our outward persona. Why, then, does it come as a shock when a girl whose interests include shopping, money, drinking, boys, drinking, clothes and boys is labeled a superficial alcoholic tramp?

It all comes down to this social psychology. What we do, wear and say is calculated. We get upset when others don’t view us the way we want them to. So what is the solution? We need to limit the information we pass on or accept the consequences of what the world sees in us. We’re young. We’re supposed to say and do stupid things. I’m not advocating constantly watching your back. Just don’t be surprised when your one-night-stand conversation ends up plastered all around “Overheard at BU” the next morning.