1. Artsy:
Chances are, you don't live in a garret or make your living as a starving artist, but in the spirit of 19th century France, built-in creative outlets are necessary for the non-traditional lifestyle. This effect can be created through possession of a sketchpad, charcoals, moleskin notebook or magnetic poetry set (all available for purchase courtesy of bursar at the Penn Bookstore). Lose points for paint-by-numbers or paint-your-own-pottery. Nonetheless, the artistically-and-literarily-challenged need not be discouraged:
The desire to create, the "need," is tenfold more important than the success of the final product. Did Ernest Hemingway just wake up one day and spontaneously create his masterworks? We think not.
2. Subversive:
Pick a cause, any cause. An interest in politics is the best way to hide your petty, self-centered, Us Weekly-reading self. Legalization of marijuana, pro-women's rights, not drinking Coors, Dennis Kucinich worship, saving the rainforests ... or better yet, develop a working rhetoric involving anything mildly progressive, anti-George W. Figtree, pro-peace, anti-establishment. Righteous liberalism isn't just a political tendency -- it's a way of life.
3. Lonely:
As important as the outside world is, true bohemians save the best of themselves for themselves. They cultivate a borderline obsessive relationship with their sacred person. This means Friday night "personal dates," lapses into self-meditation while trying to interact with others, and generally being a spacey, elusive loner. Bonus points for finding other cool loners to indulge in narcissistic loneliness.
4. Hypocritical:
We're all bourgeois at heart; we know it, we love it and we wouldn't have it any other way. Your dad pays for you to go to an elitist Ivy League school. You have shopped at Urban Outfitters, drunk coffee at Starbucks or fantasized about someone in St. A's. And just to let you know, your cigarette habit supports anti-abortion organizations. All forgivable sins, since Bo-bo's (bourgeois bohemians) exist only in utter, pitiable, wonderful hypocrisy.
