College Expectations

It’s no secret that many students expect the four years they spend in college to be the most socially vibrant years of their lives. One doesn’t have to look far for the source of this expectation. Adults of speak longingly and fondly of the their college relationships, the media dramatizes virtually every aspect of college social life and students themselves post photos, videos and statuses on social media websites that depict their seemingly constant socialization. With few sources willing to give an entirely honest and unbiased account of college life, students can arrive on campus with a warped view of the way in which most students experience life on campus. They expect to quickly become surrounded by a large group of close friends, to attend and enjoy multiple parties every weekend and to stay awake until the sun rises having profound philosophical discussions about the nature of life.

Granted, many of the commonly touted social benefits of college life do exist for many people, and students should by all means arrive on campus excited to experience them. Many students, for instance, do make lifelong friends in college. They also may frequent parties and eschew sleep long enough to watch the sun rise. However, these events rarely happen in the way that we anticipate.

For instance, my first attempts at forming relationships in college were failures. I collected dozens of phone numbers of people I never contacted. I introduced myself to many people I never talked to ever again. I started a conversation with one of my fellow first-years, only to have him say, within the first minute of our chat, “By the way, you should know that I have a girlfriend." My first encounter with my roommate started with an awkward moment of indecision between a handshake and a hug and ended with a stiff conversation that led me to believe that we would be able to be acquaintances, but never friends.

It took me more than a month to realize that my roommate was in fact one of the greatest friends I could ever hope to have, and even longer to find a larger group of people whose company I enjoyed. Interestingly, Mr. “I Have a Girlfriend” is now an integral part of that group. In fact, I’ve grown so fond of him that I feel a little bit bad for bringing attention to this incident again. This is the last time, I promise.

But I’m choosing to refer to my relationship with him because it serves as a reminder that few social situations are as seamless as we want and expect them to be. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we all know this. Alcohol is a prominent feature of parties because we’re blatantly aware that stuffing strangers into a dank basement would be painfully weird if any of us were operating at top mental capacity. We are so worried about feeling awkward that want to lose some of our cognitive abilities before we even arrive at the event. And thus, the pregame was born.

Refusing to acknowledge the true, uncomfortable nature of socialization means that we may become upset when it manifests itself. For example, I was worried that my failure to make good friends quickly meant that I wasn’t likeable or active enough. Whenever I didn’t have fun at parties, I thought that I wasn’t outgoing enough. I believed that I was doing college wrong when I saw my first Tufts sunrise after staying up all night to complete an essay, not to engage in philosophical debate.

I saw my second Tufts sunrise at the very end of my second semester. My friends and I had just returned from the hospital, where we had been vising another friend admitted for alcohol poisoning. It had been a scary night, and as we sat on the President’s Lawn at 5:13 a.m., I realized that I still hadn’t discussed the meaning of life with anyone. But thankfully, by that point, I no longer expected to. Waiting around for the perfect sunrise under the perfect conditions just leads to more waiting.