On Friday night, I got a Facebook account. The people who know me were shocked, amused, and almost across the board posted on my Timeline, “you caved!”

I had a Facebook account in high school until I freaked out one day sophomore year and deleted it. I was upset because I didn’t know what a friend’s handwriting looked like. I started writing letters, fell out of touch with most of my acquaintances, and became a much better friend to the eight or ten people with whom I stayed in touch. On my new Facebook account, I have eighty-five friends. Eighty-five!  Eighty-five people is more than I could call up or write in a whole month. Which is a good thing, since the whole reason I caved and got a Facebook on Friday is to increase readership of my opinions column.

Friday night I also found myself having a great time at an all-campus frat party. I don’t consider myself the all-campus frat party type, but the people were friendly, the music was too loud and the dance floor was awesomely disgusting. The kind of disgusting where it rains condensed sweat from the ceiling.

I felt very savvy and self-important for going against the grain when I stopped out of Stanford last May and set off for New York and conservatory ballet training. I was living the dream I imagined as the counterpoint to a Stanford about which I felt jaded, yet the frustrations I encountered in Alphabet City were almost identical to those I complained about at the Farm. The East Village had as limited a social currency as East Campus. I had left the frat parties for a scene I felt more accurately fit my self-image, and I had been duped.

Needless to say, a year away from Stanford was a humbling wake-up call that reminded me how special this place is. Now I’m back, taking the HumBio core, frequenting frat parties and having a great time. I was worried my friends would be angry at me when I told them I got a Facebook, that they might mock me for being too mainstream, for succumbing to “the man.” When I confessed my anxiety on the phone, a friend laughed and told me, “Renée, there’s no shame in being an average college student.”

Frats and Facebook aren’t something I generally include in my self-image. Neither is the word average. But I don’t get to exclude something from the person that is “Renée,” just because I don’t subscribe to the values that thing might represent.

I bring this up because it can be isolating to hold yourself too strictly to your principles. It allows you to misjudge entire communities and places you might actually enjoy. You are allowed to change your mind. And as much as it pains me to say this, you don’t get to decide who you are based on abstract ideas; you become the person you are by  leaning into the things that make you happy and trusting that you will stumble into an identity that fits right.

P.S. I also got a Twitter account. I’m still unclear on how it works, but follow me on Twitter (@reneeRdonovan) for more articles, and while you’re at it friend me on Facebook.

Amused? Confused? Outraged? Share your thoughts with Renée at [email protected].