Holding your cards close to your chest.

College is a very social environment – people meet each other for the first time on a daily basis. Some of these new relationships flicker and die as quickly as they’re born. The only interaction two people may have in their entire lifetime might be, “Hey, do you have the time?” “Yeah, it’s 3:30.” “Cool, thanks.” The two then go their separate ways, completely unaware that they each vote Democrat, have the same favorite movie, attended the same concert the weekend before, or maybe even have a mutual friend. Continuing a conversation beyond this bare minimum for no particular reason is pretty out of the ordinary, if not “weird.” How often do you start up a conversation with the person in front of you at the bank just for the hell of it? If you’re standing by yourself and he’s standing by himself, what’s to stop you from alleviating your boredom with a little bit of chitchat?

I bring this up because I eat alone at the dining hall occasionally. It’s not that I’m antisocial (most of the time, anyway), but if I need to grab a bite to eat before rehearsal or between classes, I won’t make it a point to call somebody just to have someone to eat with. Lots of people eat alone for this reason, the dining hall’s full of them. When I have a full tray, though, I’m more likely to plop down by myself than across the table from some random stranger. The occasional person can pull it off with an air of extroversion and nonchalance, but most of the time, a gesture like this comes off as desperate, forced, and a little bit sad. People often assume intentions that may or not be there. Guys don’t force conversation with other guys because it seems unspoken that guys “just don’t do that.” A guy who sits next to a random girl is obviously hitting on her. A girl usually won’t sit next to a random guy for the same reason. A dining hall full of solitary eaters, each one just as willing as the next to chat a little bit, but don’t initiate it for fear of sending out the wrong signal.

The first couple weeks of any new relationship are pretty treacherous territory. Neither person wants to come on too strong for fear of becoming “that guy who won’t stop calling me,” but he still has to convey enough interest to let the other person know that he wants to pursue some sort of relationship, whether friendship or otherwise. During this building stage, people reveal carefully selected facets of their personalities to one another to give off just the right impression. If the other person responds positively to these facets, then we progressively begin to let our guard down. Often times, a person may figure something out about his new friend that clearly isn’t up for discussion yet. For example, a friend of mine was telling me about a girl he met in some parking lot. She had a huge rainbow bumper sticker on the back of her car, leading him to the logical conclusion that she was gay. He didn’t feel comfortable breaching that subject with her without her consent. A couple weeks into the relationship, she “came out” to him – he faked surprise, but later revealed that he had kind of figured it out. She asked him why he hadn’t said anything. He told her that that part of her personality clearly hadn’t been on the table up to that point.

That seems to happen a lot – we know something about someone that we’re not supposed to know quite yet. Facebook, the greatest revolution to hit college since Jell-o wrestling (I’ve already used that metaphor in a newspaper article, but I love it, so chill), usually plays a big part in that. I meet a girl in the Quad, Facebook her, and I immediately know her phone number, her room number, etc. I can’t immediately use this information, though – way too creepy. I have to coincidentally run into her again, maybe a couple times, before the right opportunity arises to ask for her number. This opportunity usually comes in the form of a specific event – “Hey, want me to let you know if I’m going to that movie later?” “Yeah, gimme a call. My number’s…” You get the idea. Even if I’ve talked to someone several times and get along with them fine, it always seems awkward to just randomly throw out there, “Hey, I don’t think I have your number.” I could call them any time I wanted, I could drop by their room to pick up that CD we’d been talking about, I could mention that my hobbies also include waterskiing and playing guitar, but I can’t – it hasn’t naturally come up. All that information, though readily available, just isn’t on the table yet.

I guess my vague, roundabout point is that we limit potential relationships because of how we fear we’re being perceived. I don’t strike up a conversation with the marginally attractive girl a couple seats down from me because she’ll think I’m just trying to sleep with her. I don’t drop by someone’s room and ask if they want to grab coffee on a lazy Saturday because I’m not supposed to know that they live in room 212. I don’t call someone and let them know, “Holy shit, our favorite movie that we talked about is playing in the Union in half an hour” because they haven’t technically given me their number yet. We’re constantly backtracking, needling someone to tell us something we already know so that we can discuss it freely. I understand that these borders exist for a reason, but it’s a shame that a little bit of common sense (and maybe some Internet savvy) comes off as nothing but creepiness.