When I was in primary school, my nickname was "Dictionary". Why? Because I was good at spelling and other kids would ask me how to spell things for their essays and such. I was later upgraded to "Spell Check" by the guy I sat next to, because he decided that my nickname wasn't modern enough. Since then I've gravitated through several other nicknames, but it wasn't until I hit Rhodes that I realised how common nicknames are. Especially among guys.
In my first Philosophy tut of first year, a friend and I discovered that there were several very good-looking boys in our group. We didn't know their names, so we decided to give them nicknames. Mostly so that we could perv over them together. Some of them were very boring; one guy was nicknamed Blondie because he was, well, blond. Duh. Another was the gentle giant, because he was 6"4 and talked about emotions a lot. The one I was crushing on was nicknamed the sexy loudmouth, because he was drop-dead gorgeous and talked way too much. The one my friend was crushing on was God's gift to women (which I'd assume is self-explanatory). Of course these guys never knew their nicknames (and if you're reading this and figure out which one you are, I applaud you :P ).
I think I've always been in the habit of nicknaming guy friends, but some nicknames stuck more than others. My two closest guys from school were alpha geek and the cupcake. Alpha geek came from a definition we once found in a magazine, as "the person who knows more on a subject than anyone else in the room". The cupcake was my GBF (gay best friend) who wanted to write a cookery book and use the pseudonym The Cupcake Queen. This habit extended into varsity - my friends have been nicknamed with terms as diverse as Creep (because he gets creepy when he's drunk) and Neanderthal (I just spent fifteen minutes rereading old gtalk conversations to remember where that one came from - apparently because he couldn't multitask).
Since coming to Rhodes, I've discovered that guys have some strange nicknames. I've been introduced to ones as diverse as Mouse, Mad Cow, Hedgehog, Krusty, O Snap, Frenchie and Ralph (which, incidentally, did not come from a vomiting habit as one would think; it had something to do with the character Ralph from Lord of the Flies). Sadly I can't explain where all of these nicknames come from; some are from surnames, some are from physical appearance, some are from drunken incidents, nationality or a habit of using a particular saying. Sometimes I find it's safer not to ask.
Girls with nicknames don't seem to be quite as common somehow. Shortened versions of names occur; for example, a lot of friends call me Tay or Tails instead of Tayla (although Tails goes way back to when I was much, much younger. My sister and I used to watch Sonic the Hedgehog. Because she was older, she got to be Sonic. And I got to be the sidekick named - yes, you guessed it - Tails). Francesca is known as Fran, Danelle is Dan, Melinda is Mel and Lwambeso (I hope I spelled that right) is Lulu. Now that I think about it, maybe girls are just a lot less original when it comes to nicknames. Come on, ladies! We need to get creative. We've already had one step in the right direction with one friend, who recently decided to nickname me Sensei (for reasons that will remain undisclosed...). It's not like we don't have enough embarassing drunken moments to provide for potential nicknames! (Well, I'm speaking for the Jammies girls here - I don't know about the rest of you :P ).
...actually, on second thoughts, let's scrap that idea. Certain embarassing moments should stay as secretive as possible. I can live with 'Sensei'. :P
PS: brief shout out to the phil boys. You're still as good looking as you were last year :)
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