It's the first day of school, and you're still in that hopeful na've stage, where you're "open to new things" and "excited about life," and all those other aspects of youth that usually land you with an addiction, forty extra pounds, and, overcoming it all, a spot on Oprah.
You peruse TuftsLife.com playfully, chuckling at the existence of some events and pondering who in their right mind would go to others. One in particular catches your eye, "The [Insert Name here] Club's first meeting" (the actual event has no bearing on the point I plan on making), and you adventurously click the link to read more about the event.
"Come talk about [adjective] stuff with other [noun]s! We plan on watching tons of [adjective] movies, having some good [adjective] times, and eventually, reaching out into the local Medford [adjective] community. Free Pizza and Sodas! 9 p.m. in the South Hall Basement."
Unwilling to turn down free food, and, being an avid lover of [noun], you make your way down to the South Hall basement around 9:15 p.m., because you're trying to be fashionably late, and because 15 minutes, in the grand scheme of things, is a pretty worthless chunk of time. Unless they're your 15 minutes in the spotlight, in which case I'm very sorry.
So everyone is schmoozing and eating their free food, the remains of which you scoop greedily onto a weak paper plate. Just as you're about to bite into your second dinner, some overenthusiastic "peer leader" stands on a chair and clinks his plastic knife against his paper cup (an action which makes no noise, but garners enough attention to quiet the room).
And that's when it hits you.
You are about to undergo an ICEBREAKER.
Someone please hit the fire alarm. Let there be some papers you have to write. Let the peer leader fall off his chair. Anything but this. You look around nervously, searching desperately for some escape route, but you find none. You are trapped here, stuck in this happy hell, where you are being force-fed marshmallows and rainbows to the point of asphyxiation.
There are only a few places they could go with this:
1. The When-its-your-turn-stand-up-and-say-three-interesting-things-about-yourself icebreaker: This might be the most self-destructive activity possible. Not only are you choking with discomfort at the thought of standing up in front of a group of your peers to say anything at all, but you are also faced with the fact that you can't think of a single interesting thing to say about yourself, let alone three. You sit nervously, legs crossed, chewing the insides of your mouth, thinking about possible mildly amusing things to say about yourself. At this point, you're beyond trying to awe people. You're just trying to get past your turn.
I was a Brownie Scout for a few months: too goodie-goodie. I collect oddly-shaped buttons and unused stamps: too apparent that I am on my way to becoming a cat lady. I can pull my legs over my head: too kinky. There really is no proper answer. You have to say something distinctive enough that it separates yourself from the rest of the group and gives you some kind of identity. But not something so different that you are immediately transformed into some kind of awkward freak, with everyone asking you "What is it like having a metal plate installed in your brain?" or "Did you ever miss human contact during the years when were the sole inhabitant of the island off the coast of New Guinea?"
To make things worse, the few times you leave your thoughts to catch a glimpse of what's going on in the room, you hear little tidbits of other people's interesting facts: I modeled for Versace for a few years before becoming a Justice of the Peace and moving to Bali. I throw ninja stars in my spare time while learning to speak Quechua and sustaining entire villages of African orphans. Sometimes, you have to humble yourself and realize that whatever you have to say will be boring, and you will just be another face lost in the crowd. No one will find you interesting. Fade away, fade away. Le sigh.
2. Go-around-the-circle-saying-your-name-and-the-name-of-every-person-before-you. Depending on your short term memory and how many interesting facts about yourself you can conjure, this may or may not be a relief in comparison to the first scenario. The main issue with this method is the insult that comes when you forget someone's name, particularly a person sitting next to you or directly across from you; most likely the only person who introduced themselves to you. There's always the douche that gets everyone's names at light speed, and also the guy everyone sympathizes with because he can't remember anyone. Thank goodness for him. He makes you look pretty good.
Whoever keeps inventing these perverted "getting to know each other" activities needs to quit his or her job pronto. The icebreaker is the bane of many an existence, and probably holds a lot of people back from trying things they might have otherwise attempted. As an exercise, it leaves its participants feeling drained and humiliated. Next time you consider employing one of these stereotypical icebreakers at your function, consider the fact that your guests probably want to break your face instead of the ice.
