Unpopular ’12 Fakes Homosexuality to Gain Friends, Notoriety

Sam Swerdlow ’12 was just like any other average student. He didn’t play any sports, he had between twenty to forty friends but no one he would call a “best friend,” he was a member of Ledyard Canoe Club, Mock Trial Society, he participated in some service-oriented activities through the Dickey Center and he dabbled in theater, but one would be hard-pressed to find someone who knew his name without ever having met him. That all changed last week when the idea came to him to declare that he was gay, even though he technically isn’t. Today, the Dunyun takes an in-depth look into the life of this pioneer of social networking, to see how he went from zero to hero in just a few short days.

“It was kind of daunting at first, to come out of a closet that I wasn’t even in in the first place. How does one go about it? First I had to break up with my girlfriend. I started dating her freshman year because she was a cheerleader. I thought that meant she would be considered popular and pretty. How wrong I was! If anything she was a total anchor to my social cred, and being straight with a boring girlfriend is just not cool.” Soon after, Swerdlow began selectively "coming out" to different friends and acquaintances, and sometimes even to strangers. "I tried to target Croo members and people who ate in Collis, primarily, just to make sure I wasn't accidentally sharing with the wrong crowd. Like, I made sure to steer clear of the Hop."

It did not take much time before his name began appearing on the gossip site Bored at Baker. “I was being anonymously propositioned by dozens of guys. Or maybe just the same creepy horny dude over and over. Either way, it was really flattering. I started putting my own name on there a lot, like ‘Sam Swerdlow- closet case?’ Then I’d answer my own question, like ‘No, Swerdlow’s out now. Thank god!’ Then I’d go around agreeing to it on every computer on FFB.” Pretty soon, Swerdlow reports, all these “really hot Kappas” wanted to be his friends. “They would, like, swarm me at dance parties and ask if I had any coke. Sometimes Sigma Delts would make out with me ‘just for fun.’ It was weird. But, like, cha-ching. When I was an unaffiliated straight guy, girls didn’t look twice.”

Swerdlow reports he was “not hard enough” to get into an A-side frat Fall term, but now hopes to rush again in the Spring so he can be “that token cool gay guy who always brings hot girls to parties. I think I have a real shot at it because I’m gay, at least by title, but not, like, ‘too gay,’ because I don’t actually show any open affection towards dudes. That way my brothers won’t be weirded out, and maybe they'll even fight over whose wing-man I'll be!" Swerdlow only laments not coming up with the idea to fake it sooner, since he believes it would have really helped his chances to make it onto the Dimensions team last year, “or at least make it onto a decent a cappella group. Now I’m stuck with the Brovertones. What does that even mean?” At press time, the Brovertones still had no explanation, or to be more precise, no excuse.

Though some of his friends have criticized his move, calling it insensitive and deceitful, Swerdlow posits that “It’s more than just a sexual preference. It’s a way of life.” When polled through Surveymonkey, the student body ranked being gay as the top way to become a campus icon, followed closely by wearing ridiculous clothing, having a column in the Mirror, and Facebook friending everyone in your class the summer before you get to school, though these tactics are by no means mutually exclusive.