It happens all the time. You'll be walking down the street, sitting in the reserve corridor, or otherwise lounging in a public place. Not paying attention, your subconscious begins to guide your thoughts in aimless patterns. Just as your mind settles on some important topic such as who was in your fifth-grade class or the realization that so many things are made out of plastic, a voice cries out in friendly greeting, jolting you back to reality.
You've been spotted by someone from your complex web of friends. Maybe it's someone you haven't seen in two terms, one of your five-conversations-per-term friends, or someone you've been actively avoiding. You rapidly collect your wits and brace yourself for some amicable chit chat.
Make no mistake, I love chatting with my friends. But you must admit, these sorts of conversations have a formula. They go through four distinct phases.
First, the "how are you" phase. We all know the answer is "good," but creatures of habit that we are, we ask anyhow. Then the conversation moves on to the "how is your term" phase. Again, the response is predictable -- your friend will respond with "good," "busy," or he will make a face indicating that he's either good or busy. In the third phase, you will discuss classes. Here you will try to outdo your friends in number and difficulty of midterms. "Yes, Engineering 521 had four midterms this week. I win."
Finally, when you decide you no longer want to gripe about how much work you have, one of you will utter the most important question. "Want to have lunch sometime?"
Pause. Rewind. Have you ever noticed what a large percentage of the time you devote to friends occurs in the hospitality of Dartmouth Dining Services? The mere suggestion of meeting with a friend seems to lead to the implicit understanding that it involves lunch or dinner. Sure it's nice to eat with friends, but I find that I have a great number of friends who I only talk to with a tray in front of me.
What happened to the "hanging out" that we all perfected in high school? So few people at Dartmouth simply drop by to see each other. I find it such a nice surprise when a friend shows up at my door, but to suggest ahead of time on BlitzMail that we should sit and talk for a while provokes suspicion. "Talk? Is something wrong? Why don't we just go to dinner?"
Are we that busy that we can't afford an hour of affable laziness without food justification? Unless you are a compulsive GPA animal, odds are you spend at least an hour per day in your room doing next to nothing -- the all-too-familiar time vacuum. You know what I mean. It's that period of the day you can't quite account for, the hazy combination of BlitzMail, getting psychologically ready to do work, checking the weather and other such euphemisms for "wasting time." If you were to spend that time with another person, the ability to justify it would be much easier. "I'm not procrastinating, I'm socializing, building interpersonal skills to help me in the real world." It has a much better ring to it.
Spoiled on BlitzMail as we are, it seems almost primitive to physically walk to someone's dorm or apartment to say what you efficiently blitz in three minutes. Has friendship become about efficiency? Our weekday socializing limited to mealtimes? Is the ambiance of the Thayer building really a good venue for personal conversation? ("I've been so upset lately. Pass the salt.")
There's something wrong with this picture. The people with whom we once traveled in 'shmobs are now BlitzMail accounts and lunch dates. It's only our close friends that we tend to spend free time with. And even then, we're usually doing something purposeful, like going to the gym or a Wednesday night Spaulding movie. We place such a high premium on our time, yet very few of us are truthfully busy every waking moment. I think a full 50 percent of the time I spend writing any paper is devoted to daydreaming and staring at the wall. I'd certainly welcome a 15 minute conversation to snap me back to reality. And sometimes it's nice to talk to a person when there are not two bowls of soup between you.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet someone for lunch.
