Backstreet’s Back by Courtney

Courtney Hutton

Courtney Hutton

I am not ashamed to claim a love for the Backstreet Boys. I’m not a diehard fan by any standard, but I do quite enjoy a listening to “Shape of My Heart.” But in high school, this wasn’t exactly a fact I advertised. I had moved in the middle of high school, and being the new girl I was pretty closed about my likes and dislikes. One of those “fitting in” things I suppose. Anyways, high school is not the point here. I love a lot of things. Things that I used to think were a bit nerdy. I’m a devoted Harry Potter fan. I never miss an episode of Glee. We’ve already covered the Backstreet Boys bit.

I had been on campus for roughly three weeks, and one night I left my door open a crack. Here’s a tip: when a door is open, inevitably someone comes in. A few people had stopped by my room before to try to make small talk and maybe even a friend, but not while I was listening to the Backstreet Boys. There I am, singing along, bobbing my head with the music, when I hear “whatcha doing?” from directly behind me. I became suddenly panicky, trying to switch the song on my iTunes. Of course it was far too late to pull it off casually and subtly, but I had to do something. I was doing too well establishing myself as a normal freshman to let it out of the bag that I was secretly a complete dork.

To my surprise, though, she stopped me. “You can’t skip the Backstreet Boys! I love them!” She reached over me and turned up the volume. Then, even more surprising, she started singing along. The noise started to attract attention, one thing led to another, and soon there were four more girls in my room, dancing and singing along with my respectable collection of 90’s boy band.

Maybe that doesn’t seem too outstanding of an experience. Maybe you’re thinking that you and your friends do that kind of thing all the time. But I didn’t. I never would have admitted that my first cd was Britney Spears, or that I still listened to it sometimes. So for me, that night was important. It was one of those ‘aha’ kind of moments. Maybe I really could like the things I liked, and maybe there are enough people in the world that I’d find someone else who likes them, too.  The fact that the people I used to know would never approve of my iTunes playlists didn’t matter anymore. I had just moved into a whole building of people ready to break it down to “Larger than Life” any night of the week.

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