It’s a pretty friendless future once you graduate

Of all the things changing for graduates in May, the one that saddens me the most is how different social interactions are going to be. I will no longer get to hit on girls (and be promptly rejected) by asking to trade class notes. No more can I assume when meeting someone new that they have a Facebook profile.

There are old people and even children out there in the world; it’s easy to forget that in the bubble of a college campus. Cute girls laying out around campus in the spring, I will miss you.

I’ve spent so much of the past year worrying about future career plans that I’m just now realizing any new friendships I have are going to be co-workers or friends of pre-existing friends that I already have. That might not seem too weird until you think about the thousands of little interactions a campus provides you. There’s a small layer of unity; a transparent, filmy substance laid over every student that seems to grant enough of an understood connection. It’s not entirely freakish to strike up a conversation with a stranger on a bus or interact with another pedestrian as you watch two cyclists crash into each other on Seventh and Forest.

I hope you’re satisfied with your close friends. Looking back from elementary school (where I was “friends” with everyone, including the boy that attacked me periodically on the playground) to college has shown my number of friends refined like a crucible breaks down impurities. Differing interests, busier schedules and a stubborn belief that anyone who didn’t like The Dark Knight isn’t a real person has reduced the people I hold dear to smaller numbers compared to even freshman year.

If our parents are any indication, this will continue.

My father has a group of old guys who sit around drinking coffee for hours talking about the days when they could hear the entire spectrum of sound.

That social circle hasn’t changed for nearly a decade.

As you fall into serious relationships, you might find your only social interactions are with your significant other and your cat, Ms. Muffins. Every old person seems to quietly welcome this. Either they’re all dead inside or it’s just something we accept as we get older.

Maybe this is just like when I graduated from third grade and had to stop eating gross food for kids’ milk money.

I have no definite advice on the matter and can’t encourage running from getting older.

It just freaks me the heck out, and I have so fewer people to talk about this with than I used to.


E-mail: cquandt@indiana.edu