The first time I’d ever heard anyone refer to the “Walk of Shame” was, not surprisingly, my freshman year of college. I heard this term, which little to my knowledge would become ubiquitous over the next four years, sitting in my friend Jenna’s dorm room before class on a Friday morning. I listened as she described the five-to-seven minute trek she’d made hours earlier from the Phi Mu Delta fraternity after a late night of beer pong and a few stolen kisses from a guy named Brandt, three years her senior. 

As Jenna told me about the humiliation of passing by a high school tour group in her tight designer jeans and wedge heels that I recognized on her feet from Payless, I really only half listened, drifting in and out of my thoughts.

I assumed that whatever stares she had received couldn’t have been as embarrassing as the time I fell down the steps of the school bus on a class trip during my sophomore year in high school or the time in seventh grade (still only twelve years old) when I wore my field hockey skirt to school for a team spirit day and Chris Gardener made fun of me because I hadn’t started shaving my legs yet.

Seven years ago, I had yet to experience the Walk of Shame but since then, I’ve learned that they come in all shapes and sizes. Despite the moniker, they are not always shameful.

In college (okay, fine. Also, SINCE college, but who’s keeping track?), I’ve taken a few Walks of Shame myself, but some have been far more innocent than the average passerby might suspect.

I’ve taken the so-called Walk of Shame after spending the night at a friend’s house because it was late and I didn’t want to walk home alone. I’ve trekked it home in the morning after a margarita-fueled Sex and the City marathon with the girls. I’ve walked home bright and early after spending the night with a guy I was dating, declining his offer for a ride home in favor of some fresh air. The Walk of Shame can be embarrassing if you run into, say, your boss or the professor you have in class in about in hour, but in reality it’s unlikely that anyone will even notice you and your uncouth oufit unless you’re wearing a full blown evening gown (for the ladies) or a top hat and tails (Matt, etc).

Interestingly, the Urban Dictionary has several definitions for a Walk of Shame, ranging from:

 When you leave someone’s house with the same clothes you had on the night before…usually after a booty call

to:

The walk from another person(s) house, apartment, condo, dorm, van, bar, park bench or other; to your place of residence wearing the same clothes you had on the night before.

Typically…when someone leaves the home of a sexual escapade (quite possibly with someone you met the night before) in the morning; hair sticking out in all directions, lines on your face, and missing at least one article of clothing.

In the event that your œWalk of Shame did include sex, you may be wearing your partner’s€™ clothes. If you did not have sex you probably did get into a fight, damaged property, was escorted off someone’s premises, or in someway embarrassed yourself. In any case you will need to check yourself for injuries. 

Got that? Check yourself for injuries. So as you can see the definition for a “Walk of Shame” varies widely. And regardless of whether you have lines on your face or are missing your left sock and possibly a pair of pants, each person has a different definition for what constitutes a Walk of Shame. Subsequently, each person also has a different definition for what constitutes embarrassment. One’s Walk of Shame might be another’s morning calisthenics.  

What was your best/worst Walk of Shame? Do you find them embarrassing or are they a natural part of twenty-something life?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under maris thinks, thirtysomething, twentysomething. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.