The best time at Tufts is when the sun is shining, the leaves are changing color, and the temperature is cold enough that you're not sweating in the Massachusetts' humidity but warm enough that you're not required to wear a multitude of J. Crew fleece. That is when faces are still fresh from the summer. That was my first impression of Tufts, freshman year. Then, as the seasons changed and the weather grew colder, I shivered as I began to see a different side of Tufts.
I'm heading up the library steps, and there is a lone person walking down towards me. I see her in her black boots and flared pants. Our paths converge at a singular point, in front of the library perhaps, and I look at her but she looks up or away. No eye contact. It's impossible that she missed me - the moving mass of atoms closing in on her. What risk would she have taken if she looked at me? Was she afraid? Was she too busy? Why is that people walk by me but won't look me in the eye? Perhaps it's too much to ask that someone might acknowledge a fellow human being walking by.
That's what I used to think. When walking to classes, I used to look at people and offer a smile they wouldn't return. A na??ve freshman, I once counted on my way to Latin class: twenty people I passed that morning didn't look at me. I confided in a fellow classmate how upset I was that no one would look at me. Keith, a junior at the time, shook his head sympathetically and said, "Jenn, I hate to say it, but I think most people's averages are better than that."
That made me consider the thought that maybe I'm too painfully hideous to look at. I was sad at first; what was so awful that people didn't want to look at me? They avoided me. Then, I realized through talking with friends that people "out here" don't do that. Exasperated with my disappointment they would say, "Jenn, you don't just look at people when you walk by them - and smile?" Okay, so I couldn't expect most people to take the initiative but I could expect them to be polite. Civility isn't a favor, in most cases, anyway.
Then, it became a game to see how long I could smile at someone before he/she would awkwardly and ever so slightly turn his/her head in a jerking motion to covertly make eye contact. I found a deranged satisfaction when I could make them uncomfortable enough that they felt they had to look at me. But soon, I tired of the game. It lost its novelty, or I became less satiable. So I grew bitter. If they couldn't look at me, or smile, then I wouldn't bother to look at them. But then the campus just seemed so lonely. Five thousand people meandering around the hill and no one looking at each other. Its an odd world: black boots, cellular phones, messenger bags, and no smiles. So, I told myself to let go of the fact that people who didn't know me wouldn't smile at me. I had bigger beef.
I'd sit next to someone for an entire semester in a small class. We were discussion group partners or I had made small talk because apparently, I'm "weird and friendly;" we had interacted. For a whole semester this person would say hi to me when we crossed paths on campus. And then, once the semester ended and the next one began, we were strangers again. It's exceedingly frustrating that I know that they know that I know that they know me and yet, they won't smile at me or offer a flicker of recognition. Have they suddenly been struck with temporary amnesia?; have they become too good for me?
Unfriendly hall mates is another problem. People who I saw every morning running down the hall half-naked in their bathrobes or towels, whose name I knew because of the colorful nametag on their door, or with whom I ate cookies at hall snacks. But they couldn't say hi to me. It was as if they didn't recognize me. I began to wonder if I was indistinguishable. There is a large number of Asians on campus, perhaps I just blended. But that was impossible: I weigh more than 90 pounds, I don't have shiny straight Asian hair, I don't have high cheekbones or porcelain skin.
Eventually, I concluded that the only solution was that I had to know everyone. I had to know everyone well enough that they wouldn't be able to walk by me without an obligatory hello or nod of acknowledgement. Then I realized that meeting five thousand people, including incoming freshmen every year, might prove to be a futile task. The answer was evasive; it escaped my grasp every time I walked through the quad. Each time I smiled with no return.
Alas, two and almost-a-half-years on the hill have brought but a few friendly faces. A bittersweet minority due to the impending sadness of knowing that on a bad day, I most likely won't get a smile from a stranger. I won't be on the receiving end of a pleasant split-second connection with someone I don't know - but someone who is a fellow human being, a fellow student. Isn't college about meeting people? Aren't we all on the same hill? Aren't we all Jumbos? What would happen if we all acknowledged each other when we passed around campus? What would happen? Would the skies open up and Charles Tufts descend on campus ranting, "No! We must be unfriendly and indifferent! No smiling on this hill!" ?
Granted, I've been harsh. Maybe it's not unfriendliness. Perhaps it is rooted in insecurity, shyness, or the defense mechanism of not making oneself vulnerable to rejection. I have little sympathy for those that are too afraid to meet the world face up and head on. Perhaps it's just oblivion that causes the glassy-eyed-looking-past-me-while-I-smile-at-you incident. I'll admit, there are friendly people on this hill. There exists a small and diluted group of people who return my smile with a smile of their own. It excites me when we share that special moment - that moment when two people are connected by a simultaneous muscle contraction - a smile. And yes, we all have bad days when we'd rather scowl and not see anyone's face. But it's hard to be angry when you are smiling. It's like keeping your eyes open when you sneeze.
Maybe it's my West Coast upbringing, perhaps it's my annoying ability to never forget a face, or my hopeless idealism, my over-sensitivity, or maybe it's just me alone in this world smiling like an idiot. Regardless, if you're walking around campus and you see a not-so-petite Asian girl with frizzy hair and you're pretty sure that you've never met her before or you have only a vague recognition, and she smiles at you - could you just smile back? You never know, it just might make her day.
Sunshine and Smiles,
Jenn
Jennifer Marsidi is a junior majoring in English and child development.
