Uh today I got a letter from a friend of mine, who just went away to college for his first year.
And, it was funny.
It was bringing back lots of memories for me.
He just finished going through welcome week where, he was subjected to lots of really awkward ice breakers, with people he just met, and, you know, all sorts of forced bonding activities, with the... the people in his dorm.
And, I was thinking about how when I first went away to college, I was, more or less determined to alienate myself as an act of will, hehe from everyone that I met.
And it, it turned into a pretty, huh, pretty bizarre experience for me.
In my first year I was living on campus at Trenton State College.
And, uh, I pretty much determined after about a week there that, I really didn't like anyone in my entire dorm.
And, huh, rather than you know, behaving in a mature way about this, I decided to make that apparent to everyone and I just kept myself.
I ended up becoming, rather close friends with my roommate.
But, uh, I think we made really obvious that we didn't want to interact with anyone.
And it became almost this elaborate game between us and, the people in our dorm who just thought we were, being really mysterious.
And of course they were all incredibly intrigued by the fact that we didn't want to interact with them.
And... Huh, we were constantly in these, ridiculous feuds with people on our floor over things that really didn't matter.
We were just trying to assert that we were above them by, you know, not wanting anything to do with them.
Every single day, I remember, people would leave notes our message board asking us to go to lunch with them, cuz the whole floor had a habit of eating together.
A whole process that we found to be utterly appalling at the time.
But, every single day we would not show up.
But for some reason they just felt the need to extend the invitation every single day.
And_ I don't know after a while I think it turned into a, it turned into a very entertaining thing for us.
Um, there was you know, there was certain something to that interaction that was, bit_ you know, added, um, I think a good amount of, adolescent melodramatic tension to my life.
And, I think I really enjoyed myself.
But, uh, hehe, but the, the tragic part of it was that, about the three quarters of the way through to the year, I just got kind of bored with it.
And I realized that I had, completely isolated myself from every possible person who, wanted anything to do with me.
And... There was a point at which, my roommate and I both realized this.
And, we just_ we couldn't believe you know, what we had done with our, you know, our potential, uh, personal lives at college.
And, um, i- it was it was really, really kind of sad.
I mean, first year at college you, you don't have a car or anything and you're just stuck with the people, that you live with.
And you're living in this little microcosm of a world where, everything is incredibly out of proportion.
By that time all drama, all the, you know, admittedly self created drama that had been, perpetuated throughout the year was completely out of control.
You know, we had all these very bizarre convoluted situations with everyone that we, had ever interacted with.
And no one knew what to make of us, everybody thought we were just these aliens.
And... It was sad.
It was really a sad experience.
And finally by my sophomore year we wound up moving to a different dorm.
And... There were a few people from our freshman year who, for whatever reason be it the challenge or, haha just complete generic boredom, decided to try to forge these friendships with, with us, regardless of the fact that we had, you know, been through a difficult_ for the entire first year living there.
And some of those people actually became my closest friends for the, you know, the remainder of my college experience.
But it's funny to this day when I talk to some of these people they're just like,
"What were you doing.
What were you doing freshman year. You know, why were you like that.
I don't understand, you know, what you were doing with yourself."
And it's funny.
I mean I, I look back on it now and I'm just like, "Man, you know, what was that all about."
I mean, it's funny because now when I go into a new situation where I don't know anyone, I always have that same, knee jerk reaction somehow where I'm just like
"I don't even wanna have to try, I don't wanna have to try to be friends with these people. You know, let them come to me, let them come to me"
And, it's kind of a, shoot yourself in the foot kind of, uh, kind of idea, I guess, to live your life by.
Not exactly a productive philosophy but ... it's weird I mean I just moved to a new town and, uh, you know, I have all these roommates who I don' know from, a hole in the wall really.
We all just kind of randomly got together.
And... I'm finding myself having a lot of flashbacks to freshman year because I'm I'm having some of these old like inclinations rising up.
Where I'm just like, "ah I just want to be really antisocial, I don't want to deal with these people, I don't want to have to, pretend to socialize."
And I don't know, I'm just just kind of wondering, you know, wondering if i, can possibly handle myself little bit better this time around than I did the first time around.