Overcoming the Fear of Being Cringe With MentiFY!

The pursuit of being nonchalant. That subtle voice inside your head telling you to limit your awkward interactions and fear showing your true personality, because, God forbid, you may lose “aura points.” 

But how am I, as a MentiFYer, supposed to stop this voice when mentoring people who are only a year younger? Why would anyone think I have it all figured out?

 

Well, it doesn’t end there. I started (and therefore finished) school one year earlier, making me a MentiFYer to people born in the same year as me. Some were even older!

The lines between friendship and authoritarianism in this position are often blurred. On one hand, you have the MentiFY program, which comes with the expectation that new students must be oriented by the end of the week. 

On the other hand, you shouldn’t blame students if they aren’t paying attention to your seemingly never-ending spiel about Empower and Canvas.

 

Strangely enough, one of my biggest concerns during Orientation of Fall 2025 was my friend from high school who was randomly assigned to my group. It was like my two worlds were about to collide and I didn’t know if I should be more like my high school self or like my AUBG self. 

When it came to eye contact, I thought I had two choices. 

The first was to constantly look at him when I’m explaining something. After all, he was the only person in the group I actually knew. But he’s obviously not the only person in the group overall, so why would I only look at him? 

The second option was to just avoid looking at him. But why would I alienate a person just because I know him from before AUBG? Moreover, why would I alienate a friend? 

You might be asking yourself “Why didn’t you find a middle ground between those options?,” and, to be fair, I didn’t know this was an option. 

It was also weird knowing that the other people in the group know that we know each other.

 

The epitome of cringe in Orientation Fall 2025, though, came last. It was the 2000s-themed party where we felt “ultra-super-duper cool” like the kids from Camp Rock.

Fasten your seatbelts for the “Umbrella” performance. 

All it took was fellow MentiFYer Ivan Hristov’s nonexistent singing talent, a few robotic MentiFYer dancers, some umbrellas, and water guns. I wish AUBG would’ve let us use the hose. 

Going out to twirl some umbrellas for four and a half minutes in front of 420 not yet acclimatized AUBGers felt humiliating and I chickened out at the last minute. My much more modest role was to spray my dancing colleagues with water at the end of the performance.

Looking back, I wish I had danced. 

 

Funnily enough, SG held its “Get to know us” session right before our performance, and I had to help. Due to the time conflict, I showed up at the theatre with a full-on water bazooka.

My core memory was when the umbrella performance was over. Our playlist was full of “white-girl music” bangers and we found ourselves carelessly singing and dancing on the ABF lawn. All while the hesitant-to-join freshmen were filled with a mix of amusement and disgust. 

But I didn’t care. Not even the thought that I had to be responsible for 20 people not to get lost in Bansko the next day could hold me back from enjoying this moment. I definitely went to bed with a smile that night. 

On the cultural trip the next day, I overheard a freshman saying, “How can they be so cringe and play with water guns?”

 

Fast forward to Spring 2026 Orientation, when my MentiFY group consisted of exchange students only, some of whom had never seen snow in their life. 

One day, Yoana Nikiforova, a fellow MentiFYer, and our mentees were hanging out in Skapto III. It had snowed heavily the night before, and our whole campus was covered in snow, making it look like an old Disney fairytale. 

 

We felt the urge to go outside and build snowmen. As I was watching the exchange students admire the snow, I felt like a proud older brother watching his younger siblings take their first steps. Who would’ve thought that this would be such a precious moment? 

We just started with a few snowballs passing around. 

 

Everything was under control until a group of more than 15 other students started coming our way. From a distance, they threw a few snowballs at us, and of course, we responded accordingly. It was innocent at first, but the closer they came, the harder it became for us to defend ourselves. 

It felt like a battle between a snowploy and a snowflake. 

As the fight stopped being fun and both groups started drifting in opposite directions, we started walking back.

 

While we were just laughing at how one of the exchange students fell on the crisp ice, we heard the RAs behind us. “Give us your cards,” they yelled as we were still trying to process the fight, the fall on the ice, and their presence. 

Turns out that we were too loud. The fact that we were warned through a window and no one heard it is saying enough. 

 

It was pitch black outside, probably -10C, and my hands were freezing cold from the snow fight. But the outside temperature felt like the Sahara desert compared to the Arctic condition my heart was in. 

I tried to brush off that sinking feeling with some jokes and laughter. But I remember the realization that I, the sophomore MentiFYer, was about to get reported right in front of my mentees.  

My face didn’t turn red just because of the cold.

After trying to avoid the report, and failing to do so, we took mugshots to capture our collective first Skapto report. Although the report is not something I am proud of, looking back at the situation, I think it was worth it. 

So what if I was in a cringe situation and got embarrassed in front of people I am supposed to mentor? In my opinion, mentoring isn’t about doing the “right” thing 24/7. It is about taking accountability for your actions but also still having fun. And I’m glad I did both.

 

 

Edited by Janina Ormanova & Kaloyan Ivanov

 

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