It was the first day of volleyball practice in the ninth grade (my first year of high school). After running and stretching, my coach sat us down and asked us how our first day of high school went. We all responded with typical generic answers like “good” and “not bad.” She proceeded to ask some more ice breaker questions such as “did you get lost?” and “did you like your teachers?” We nodded our heads and went along with what our coach had to say. We were all pretty disinterested, as our parents (who seemed more nervous than we were) hounded us with the same questions.

As our pre-practice chat started to dwindle down, our coach caught our attention with her final words. “I just have one piece of advice for you girls, and trust me when I say: do NOT become a cute upperclassman’s ‘fresh-meat’ no matter what.”

My teammates giggled and proceeded to get up and start playing. Me, being the awkward and confused fourteen-year-old that I was had absolutely no idea what my coach meant by “fresh-meat.” It wasn’t something that I was dying to understand, nor did I really care. I didn’t ask what she meant by it or why everyone giggled; I was just trying to adjust to high school and get in the hang of finding my biology class.

It was not until two weeks after this speech that I finally received some clarification. My phone lit up with a Facebook message from an upperclassman boy in my high school saying that his friend thought I was “a cutie” (LOL classic move of making your friend be the messenger). I didn’t really know what to do, or how to answer. Let me reiterate that I was an extremely awkward and confused human at age fourteen. I did what most girls do naturally, and I showed my friends the message the next day at practice. As perplexed as they were at the situation, they reiterated my coach’s advice: don’t be this boy’s “fresh-meat.”

I finally understood! For those of you who don’t know, Urban Dictionary defines “fresh-meat” as “Previously untouched member of the opposite sex, wanted for only one reason.” Typically, in today’s society, the upperclassmen boys seek out the freshmen girls because they are tired of, or probably have already hooked up with the older girls. The freshmen girls are perhaps a “breath of fresh air.”

With my friends’ convincing, I did not end up messaging the upperclassmen’s friend back on Facebook. It definitely left room for awkward encounters in the hallway, but at that time, it was worth listening to my coach’s advice.

Flash-forward five years when a whole new world falls into the laps of millions of naïve girls who are even more confused and unsure than before. Yes, now we are in college. We’re going to frat parties. We’re attending mixers with the athletes. We’re getting Facebook invites to events we didn’t even know would occur. We are susceptible to falling into the trap of being someone’s “fresh-meat.”

The “fresh-meat” phenomenon is ten times more serious in college than in high school. College is real. We’re adults. We have responsibilities. Feelings become real. Situations become messy. Everything has the capability of going from good to bad within seconds, and unfortunately mommy and daddy will not be there to catch us when we fall.

To the freshman girl who the upperclassman boy thinks is “a cutie”: know what you are getting yourself into if you fall for the senior boy. Know that however this ends, it most likely will not be pretty. You barely know where the dining hall is, but don’t worry because that senior boy is apartment shopping for a place to live that’s close to the job he landed for after graduation. You haven’t had the chance to just hang with the girls because you want to see him, but don’t worry because he’s had six semesters more than you worth of “bro-time.” You feel like you have to like him because he’s a senior and he chose you, but don’t worry because if he suddenly doesn’t want anything to do with you, the whole thing will be over. You eventually will start to like him and most likely will tell him how you feel, but don’t worry, he’ll pull the “I’m a senior, and I’m leaving soon, so it’s probably best if we end things” card. You will adjust the way you walk to class, or sit in a different place at the library so you don’t accidentally run into him, but don’t worry because if he passes you, he’ll probably just ignore you anyway.

You’ll wait for a text from him asking to “talk” or “take a walk,” but don’t worry he’s probably already texting another girl who will never bring up concepts like feelings and commitment. You’ll give him chance after chance even though you know it’ll lead to disappointment, but don’t worry he’ll walk all over you and smooth talk his way back into your life. You’ll be left confused and feeling empty because he was one of the few close friends you made in college, but don’t worry he’ll be living it up and cruising through his senior year unscathed. In the end, you thought he would be the mature one since he’s entering the real world and claims he’s a man, but don’t worry you’ll be the only one to move on and deal with what went down with your head held high despite the hell that he put you through.

People say that the older they get, the wiser they become. I listened to my volleyball coach in the ninth grade. If only my eighteen-year-old self would have been as wise. Take my coach’s and now my advice: don’t be someone’s “fresh-meat.”