Suck My Guac

In my recent poll, you guys made it clear that you want to hear my thoughts on “the strangeness of hanging out with college acquaintances/party buddies in a post-college world.” I was really hoping you guys wouldn’t choose that one. Because this topic requires actual thought; it entails reflection and effort, synthesis and analysis of the incoherent synapses and ephemeral theses that pop up in my mind and quickly disappear. I know I have thoughts on this topic, but I didn’t really want to have to pin them down and turn them into words, sentences, paragraphs, blog posts.  But I wouldn’t break a promise I made to my readers, so I’ll try to crank this out.  Screw y’all for making me think.

The first piece of strangeness that arises when hanging out with a college acquaintance in a real-world setting is how to introduce him or her to other people. The default, “My college friend,” becomes dicey when both you and the introductee know that the term “friend” is perhaps being used a little too loosely.  “We went to college together” sounds too cold, sterile even, and seems to imply that the era in question is long since past.  I’ve heard people play up this idea, ironically exaggerate the passage of time:  “My ol’ college buddy,” they’ll say, maybe with a southern twang.  But this humor becomes unintentionally morbid, due to the melange of truth and untruth it carries, and the vague sense that everyone in your graduating class will eventually end up in this category, all faces and names and discrete memories blended together in an opaque, gelatinous mental mush you call “college.”

Once everyone is introduced, interaction itself can be weird.  People’s post-college social circles tend to be smaller (one of the ironic effects of moving to a big city, I suppose), so vague acquaintances from school can become regular hang-out pals.  With these people, there’s always a false sense of intimacy, the illusion that you guys know each other much more than you actually do.  You feel weird asking them basic questions (“Wait, where are you from?” “You have a sister?” “What did you study, again?”), because you should know these things if you’re friends, right?  Fallacious assumptions both create and hinder the relationship.  But there’s still a definite comfort in hanging out with these people, despite the artificiality of your closeness.

Also, maybe this is just me, but I find that I now feel a fondness for people I didn’t care too much about or maybe even didn’t like during college (for instance, Jamie annoyed the shit out of me at school).  But post-graduation, these people are like beacons of safety and familiarity in a sea of plaid-clad hipsters and crack whores and scary kids with dreadlocks (okay that was SF specific, but you can insert applicable stereotypes from whever you live).  You look at college acquaintances and see someone who has already been through a screening process, someone who at least has something in common with you. This automatic network of acquaintances has its benefits but can also be extraordinarily limiting.  You probably don’t have that much in common with that kid you used to do kegstands with in your freshman dorm hallway (“Dude, I was SOOOO shitfaced that one time” can only cement a bond for so long).  For all you know, there’s someone at the next booth who went to University of Randomsville who you would connect with on a much deeper level.  A real life example of Vonnegut’s brilliantly imbecilic granfalloon.

Also, college buddies come with a bundle of obligations–obligations to hang out with people because they happen to live near you, obligations to clear your schedule because your sophomore-year suitemate is in town for the weekend, obligations to miss people. I hope I’m a frigid bitch in saying that, with few exceptions, I don’t really miss my college pals yet (unless I’ve told you that I miss you.  I really meant it then.).  It’s been over a year, but it just feels like a long summer break.  If one of my quasi friends from school–the kid who served me at the campus diner or who I always used to pass at the same spot on the way to my senior seminar–suddenly waltzed into the coffee shop by my house, I’d feel inclined to give them a vague nod and go back to my book.  One’s life can only have so many peripheral players at once, so it doesn’t much matter when one disappears for a bit.  And isn’t that kind of the purpose of these friends after all?  They come and go.  Sometimes they’re gone for a long time before they come back.  Sometimes you see them every day for a week.  You probably don’t really notice too much of a difference.

All of this is not to say that I don’t value my acquaintances and party buddies from College X (I don’t know why I try to keep up a pretense of anonymity).  I do value them.  But in the same way that I value my friend who I met at an art gallery in SF or friends I know through the magazine or from my semester abroad–the type of friends who I’ll forget about for a week or three months and then rediscover when I’m scrolling through my cell phone on the bus.  Fun friends who I’m always happy to remember, and who don’t mind being temporarily forgotten.

Congrats if you made it to the end of this.  I won’t apologize for the length, because you guys asked for it.  But now my head hurts.  Peace.

-Kate