My Weird Ass School: Orientation Icebreakers

Let’s face the facts: orientation games are about as fun as getting molested by uncle Roy. Every college over these past few weeks has tried to put their own fun spin on icebreakers, so they think up fun things for students to do. The problem with these alleged activities is that they’re not actually any fun.
In all fairness, it’s not like we as incoming freshman don’t expect to see them. They’re everything we’ve heard about from our friends, told about from our parents, and informed about from books and websites (I’m looking at you collegehumor). Yet even with all this information we as incoming freshman find ourselves continually ass raped by the big brother of icebreakers.
Orientation games – or icebreakers if you will – come in a few different styles, all of which are painful in their own separate ways.

1) The Awkward Situations Icebreaker: anyone who’s ever been in a group of 10-12 people they don’t know expect silence more or less. Everyone is afraid of being that person to put themselves out there and try to get a conversation going. This is normal and while there are exceptions about 98% of the time you’ll end up with a very uncomfortable and nervous silence. To help get everyone comfortable with everyone else, orientation leaders devise little activities to say unique things about you to cause a chain reaction and spark conversation. These do not work because nobody wants to talk for fear of looking like an ass in front of potential drinking buddies and friends. The real problem however is that when you don’t want to say anything you feel even worse because then you’re the punk bitch who doesn’t have enough nuts to say his favorite food (answer: Spaggett-O’s with meatballs. Gotta have the meatballs…). Now you might want to say “well that’s not the orientation leader’s fault, that’s your fault for not being able to say anything” and you’re absolutely right on that too. Grow a pair of nuts you pussy and say something. The problem is nobody has nuts until after orientation and thus you’re stuck with situations that leave you feeling awkward with those in your group. Way to make a few friends early on slugger.

2) The Drinking Games Without Alcohol Icebreakers: So you’ve sat through enough of the awkward silence games and your orientation leaders decide to change pace by playing games that have a pre-school homage to them in some light. Suddenly you’re all sititng in a circle playing a game where you have to keep in rhythm and call out numbers. Does this game remind you of another game you play with a couple friends and some alcohol? Because it should. That’s right, after those awkward silences are finally over you walk into a new trap, which is, in essence, drinking games without the drinking. Sure, games like “Never Have I Ever” seem fun when you’re sober and trying to get to know people, but that’s only because you haven’t played it while drinking. Is there anything wrong with playing these games sober and in an orientation group? God no. In face, they might even be better icebreakers than most other ones because they don’t force you to talk, either step in a circle if you’ve done some shit like accidentally run over a cat (and I use the word “accidentally” loosely because you know deep down your love is for dogs and dogs alone), or just say numbers off the top of your head. You can say numbers like a pro, you’ve been doing it almost all your life! All that said, it’s still kind of strange to play “zoomie zoomie” without a cold one in hand.

3) The “Dude I Feel like a Fag” Icebreakers: By this point in orientation your small group of 10-12 has joined forces with the other 16 groups of 10-12 to create the ultimate Power Ranger. Does that analogy sound gay? Clearly you haven’t seen shit until you’re asked to stand back to back and lock arms with a guy and start dancing. That’s right, this is the point at orientation where you’re continually saying to your buddy “Mark I think I’m turning gayer by the second.” It’s a good thing you picked up on those signals, cause you probably are. Screaming out silly things with over-energetic people, having to sit on another guy’s lap (yes, you did read that correctly), and lying down on your stomach and talking about your favorite movies are all a part of this section of orientation. Guard your asshole like it’s gold during this part, there’s no better advice I can give you other than that.

So there you have it: icebreakers in a nutshell. Is your school different? Eh, maybe, but that doesn’t excuse any one of you from the fact that at some point during your orientation you had to turn to your friend and say “dude, I feel like a total fag. What’s your favorite movie that starts with the first letter of your name?”