I’d always dreamed about what my first collegiate athletic event would be like.

I’d fantasized about painted chests, flying banners, stands decorated in university colors and hordes of drunken students screaming until a lung collapses.

What I got was four painted chests and a mom who couldn’t keep her eyes off the shirtless fellows.

She even turned to me at one point during the match and asked me what kind of balls it took to do something like that.

I looked her right in the eyes and said, “the male kind.”

OK, you caught me. I didn’t really say that. In fact, I didn’t say much at all. I think I just smiled and gave the courtesy chuckle before she returned her gaze to the blinding skin of the “ballsy” men with paint on their chest.

Back to the point at hand. I came to UCSD knowing that it was the most pathetic school-spirited university that I could’ve possibly chosen.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

There wasn’t a single visiting fan and only one guy sat on the opposite side. I continue to believe he was there because he hadn’t showered in over a week and would have been threatened by the fans if he didn’t move.

Every time the shirtless four started yelling, it was in perfect harmony and unison, the content of their cheers unclear and meek at best. They might have a career working as the Disneyland quartet, but not as cheerleaders.

At one point, I thought they began chanting “Let’s go Croutons, let’s go,” and it gave me a craving for a good salad. I was later informed that the “croutons” were actually Tritons and a good salad was nowhere to be found.

The students were dispersed throughout the crowd in groups of threes and fours. When the foursome tried to get other fans involved in the cheers, it sounded more like a scratchy CD that skips and skips and skips and skips and skips and is just really annoying.

If I was an opposing fan, I think I would’ve died from laughing at how pitiful the attempt was. As a student, I wanted to cry and hide myself in utter shame.

What happened to the idea of a student section and school pride? Isn’t that what gets fans spirited and loud?

At one point the gym was so quiet I thought I heard one player ask another if she’d read the new Cosmo. Maybe the mom would’ve been interested in the shirtless guy of the month that appears in every issue.

Worst of all, I think that there were more people at the library studying on that Friday night than were sitting in the stands at the game. That’s truly the sign of how pathetic this school is: The masses prefer studying over fraternizing at athletic events.

I always thought that college games would involve hundreds of drunken students uniting into one community with one voice — one group that stands up for everything profane and goes to any length for a victory. I know that sounds like some grandeur delusion, but hey, a man can have his dreams.

I wanted a school with tailgates, pom-poms and spirit shirts, but here I am, and I’m making do looking for the positive in what seems like only negatives. Besides, I’m to blame. I knew how bad it was before I got here.

At least students can yell *$&# and #*@ and &#$*@! without any administrators tearing through the crowd and punishing the perpetrator like they did in high school.

That’s part of the experience I’ve always hoped for, and I took advantage of it the first chance I got. Then I realized something: Unlike high school, I have no one to turn around to and blame if someone actually cares.

So when this old guy four rows down turned his head and stared a hole through my head while he shook his head, I felt embarrassed because I could only imagine the things running through his soon-to-be Alzheimered mind. I’m sure he kept asking himself where the world is headed with a bunch of foul-mouthed, shirtless men that attract older women and why he fought in three different wars to protect free speech if this is how he’s repaid.

But that’s what collegiate fans are supposed to be like: rude, relentless and ridiculous. It’s our right.

Apparently the UCSD student body hasn’t gotten the message.

So my plea to students is to get their impersonal, antisocial butts out of the library or dorm room or classroom and plant it in the stands with actual other people and root on fellow schoolmates as they compete for the pride of this university.