leaving with more than just a marketing degree and a high tolerance for alcohol. Around my sophomore year, my 10-letter Armenian last name yielded several variations of nicknames used by my friends and teammates to identify me. Much to my dismay, the spitball that stuck was Shark. Shark. I love my friends, but guys, really?1. First of all, begin to read this sentence out loud and tell me this doesn’t scream feminine: “So this girl Shark I played lacrosse with…” Okay. So there’s that part. If you don’t know me, immediately you picture Goldberg the Goalie with a wig on…right?
2. The superglue effect. I went to a small school. Everyone knows everyone….etc. etc. And nicknames that are adopted and spread by more than a handful of people stick. I can confidently say that by the time I graduated, 4 people that I regularly hung out with called me by my first name. I may sound a bit overreactive…but at 24 when your best friend’s uncle wants to know “how’s Shark doin?” that’s where I start to consider drawing the line…
3. Lastly…collegiate sports are over for me. I can no longer pretend that the nickname had something to do with my ferocity on the field. Instead, I’m now 24 and at times find myself in a meet and greet situation that might involve a semi good-looking guy and goes something like “this is my friend Shark…well, Kate.” or, this is Kate, we call her Shark.” And that leads me to stutter out some sort of pieced together explanation…all the while the guy is thinking “okayyy I need to abort mission and see about another Sam Adams…” You get the idea.
So my question is, with 25 and what I hope is a growing career on the horizon…how do you go about shaking that nickname? I guess the answer is, you don’t. You just thank God you have friends that stick as close by you as that damn name.
Editor’s note: ironically enough, sharks are my biggest fear and I can’t and won’t watch Jaws. In fact it was really hard for me to have to Google Image “Shark” for the post photo.
