I was convinced last week by a number of people that the best way to spend my Friday evening would be playing laser tag at Webster Hall.
Upon consenting to the activity, a few things flashed through my mind. The first, of course, was that I had never played Laser Tag (it was one of the many 1980's fads -- like answering machines and touch tone telephones -- that completely passed over the Kelly home) and would probably fail miserably at it. The second was my suspicion that the Programming Board is now scheduling every event they humanly can in Webster Hall so it looks like the place is actually useful.
But before I began to formulate any major conspiracy theories, something else flashed through my mind: that it would be great to win, to rise through the ranks of some 60 odd teams and emerge victorious as Laser Tag champions.
It's not that victory would have meant anything or earned me some invaluable prize, but who can deny the rush of winning, the thrill of sending the other team home. Our first match was great fun. None of us had any idea of what we were doing or how the whole operation worked, so we played conservatively and effectively, defeating the other team, whose major downfall, I concluded, was the fact that they all had the exact same hairstyle, by the narrow margin of 16 - 13.
With victory secured, we settled down and watched a few more matches. Laser Tag was turning out to be a lot of fun. My favorite matches were the ones where the cool frat team would go up against the geeky frat team, and the cool guys would lose embarrassingly. This happened at least twice -- Dartmouth's version of "Revenge Of The Nerds," perhaps.
But soon, we faced our second round match, and that's when the real trouble began. The team we were supposed to face, tired of waiting around and decided to leave. We expected a forfeit and starting licking our chops for the round of 16. But when our team number was called, it turned out that one of the members from the other team had remained and had assembled some friends from groups that had already lost to go up against us -- sort of like a Pro Bowl team made up of players from the Houston Oilers and Cincinnati Bengals. Of course, we protested -- loudly.
We didn't want to have to risk our place in the tournament to a team that didn't exist. Were we being petty? The other team seemed to think so, but we didn't care. We wanted victory. We eventually got them to concede to a forfeit, but they still wanted to play us -- a sort of exhibition in which we advanced regardless of who the winner was. Our team thought it over, but we didn't want that either. If we lost, but still ended up in the round of 16, we would look like complainers without any real Laser Tag skill.
And so we protested again -- loudly. At this point, we were really gaining the wrath of the Programming Board people, and of course, the other team, who continued to claim that it was in our best interest to play. The tussle reached its pinnacle when someone asked me, "Are you here to have fun or are you here to win?" Without even thinking twice, I responded, "We're at Dartmouth. We're here to win." Now we were really looking like the bad guys; but somehow, we found ourselves on the Laser Tag stage, rather against our will, playing the ramshackle, already forfeited team.
The entire experience made me extremely angry. Our team looked like a bunch of killjoys -- hyper competitive freaks who would do anything to win. The thing is, that's precisely what we were. That's precisely what everyone who showed up to play Laser Tag was. Granted, we were there to have fun, but everyone wanted to win.
At Dartmouth though, no one wants to admit that people are competitive, that deep down, we all have the potential to be a bunch of heartless backstabbers. Granted this place is at least sane enough to realize that ripping pages out of reserve reading or sabotaging someone's lab report is pretty lame for all involved, but when it comes down to it, when the medical school or law school has to choose between you and someone else, is there anyone who would think of deferring, giving up or allowing someone even the slightest edge over them? We looked like the Laser Tag meanies, but I don't think there was a single team that would have acted differently.
We ended up winning that second round match, and advancing into the round of eight before being eliminated. Our competitiveness didn't prevent us from having fun -- if anything, it made the entire experience all the more enjoyable. Our competitiveness didn't prevent us from congratulating the team that beat us on a job well done, either.
With all of its tacky charm though, I came to the conclusion that Laser Tag is the perfect metaphor for what Dartmouth is all about -- people shooting each other down under the guise of a fun Friday night, but knowing in their heart of hearts that if the stakes were real -- that if they were playing for that job with Goldman Sachs or admission to Harvard Medical School, they'd be more than willing to load that gun with real bullets.
