How (Not) to Make Friends in Class

I'm baaack! As promised, I will be continuing this blog, although the class that originally inspired it is now over. For the three people still reading, thank you and also, you're welcome.

Already I'm more than three weeks into Spring Quarter, and after a not-so-relaxing Spring Break, this actually feels like a relief. You can picture me sunning myself on a beach somewhere for a week if that makes you feel better, but in reality, I was doing the following:

• moving apartments: HOLY SHIT I HAVE SO MUCH SHIT. My dad had to carry my monstrosity of a TV and afterwards looked at me and said, "I have never regretted being a father as much as I did in these past two minutes." 
• turning 22: compared to last year's birthday, this year, while still a shitshow, was a remarkably classy and refined affair. Did I throw up on my friend's white carpet? Maybe. Did I flirt with a multitude of ugly strangers? Perhaps. Did I leave another friend a series of increasing racist (but playful-racist) messages? I don't know, you tell me
• eventually making my way down to Cali and NOT getting kicked out of Disneyland this time! Hallelujah!
• trying to sell various things on Craigslist and inadvertently falling prey to various scams: I had to get quite stern with one "Andre" who needed his money order sent to "London." Also I'm still hoping one day I'll see something about myself in the "missed connections" section - every time I see "red head" my heart leaps, but then the rest of the sentence is always "walking her cute dog" or "dancing so sexy at Rumours," never anything that I might actually have been doing, like, "buying Haggen's entire supply of Cheetos" or "glaring at high schoolers while blasting Odd Future and looking uncharacteristically menacing." 

Funny story, I did actually go to Rumours for the second time ever, but my "party" was asked to leave when my guy friends decided stomping on a shattered shot glass and spraying everyone in the vicinity with broken glass shards was the best way to take the night up a notch. I never said I kept sophisticated company.

Anyway. So here I am, all settled in my brand new apartment, fresh notebooks, new class schedule, ready to resume a slightly altered version of the same old routine. Which, obviously, includes blogging. For your consideration...

How (Not) to Make Friends in Class

Every time my parents complain about my friends and encourage me to make some new ones, which is often and ongoing, they always emphasize that I should be making friends in CLASS. Every time I reach the beginning of a new quarter, like this one, they remind me how nice it would be for me to MAKE NEW FRIENDS...in CLASS.

I understand the concept...in theory. But clearly, I've yet to master it. One time, after a riveting Film in Soviet Russia lecture, I got asked to "watch the basketball game"...but as it turns out, he didn't wanna be my friend. Other than that, I have little to show for the past four years of college life. So, yeah, I don't think I've made a single legitimate friend in class.

This isn't relevant, but I just spent a really long time looking at college memes, and for the record, this guy is who I would choose to be friends with. If I could.

1. Dorm Life

I think that living in the dorms as a freshman is supposed to be some sort of springboard for making friends. Well, friends, I didn't go to Western my freshman year. I went to Scripps College FOR WOMEN in Claremont, California. I guess I must have thought, "Oh, I get along with girls so much better than boys, I'll go to a girl's school and it'll be like one big fun girls' night out!" Well, IT WASN'T LIKE THAT AT ALL. I got assigned to the socially awkward dorm (technically it was the "medical" dorm, but you get the idea) and made...a lot of enemies. The other (much older) head cases were not ready for my drunken just-got-to-college!!1!11!! shenanigans.

By the time I transferred to Western, I had no interest in being (I imagined) the only non-freshman in the dorms. So yeah, I missed that boat. And no, I don't regret it. You know what's great about NOT living in the dorm? Being able to get drunk. Being able to smoke. Being able to have people over. Being able to play loud music. Being able to have sex without making your roommate sleep on the common room couch. And so on. At least, that's the logic I used on my parents when they told me to live in the dorms and "make new friends." They weren't that impressed, but it worked.

2. Giant Lectures

My first 200+ person lecture was a bit of a rude awakening. There is no way to make friends in these class. Every time I have gone to one, which admittedly is only on test days, I don't even RECOGNIZE any of the people sitting near me, like from one class (test) to another. How the fuck would I ever make friends with any of them? I wouldn't. I haven't. I won't.

I once had an Art History class with two of my good friends and didn't realize it until a few months later. Whoops.

3. Regular-size classes

Most of my classes in my sophomore and junior years were neither too large nor too small; around 60 people, typically. In this size of class, not only can you choose to sit near the same people on a regular basis, but professors will usually demand lots of "small group work," giving you a chance to interact further with those seated closest to yourself. Keeping this in mind, it's important to choose your seat wisely on the first day of class: sit next to people who remind you of people you already know.

I've tried to befriend my group members before, and needless to say, it's rarely gone well. I might seem talkative and confident on this blog, but for those of you who had a class with me, do you remember all my scintillating contributions to group discussion? No, you don't, because I didn't make any. I have an enormous fear of interrupting someone in a forum where there are no raised hands. I also have an enormous fear of: not coughing right before I speak so my voice doesn't come out croaky, coughing casually before speaking and accidentally coughing up phlegm, casually wiping phlegm somewhere and having someone notice...OK, I just don't talk in class. The end. 

4. Small classes

When I went to Scripps, my classes typically had around 12 to 20 people. This was an environment in which I should have been able to make plenty of friends. And I almost did, at least in my Shakespeare class...until, The Incident - which, by the way, inspired my "How (Not) to Fart in Class" post. Need I say more?

As I creep towards graduation (and trust me, I'm creeping), many of my upper-level English classes are in the 20-something range. I keep seeing the same people over and over again, and it should follow that I might be able to befriend one or two of them. And it's true: you get to know the people around you. You do workshops, and small groups, with many of them, repeatedly.

And yet, this still doesn't work out for me. I always say the wrong thing in workshop (I compared a guy's short story to Avatar, because I REALLY LIKED THAT MOVIE...apparently no one else did). Small groups tend to give me a really light fraction of the work load, because they assume I am anti-social and untrustworthy. And admittedly, I perpetuate their assumptions, because I'm lazy. One time, my group leader asked me if I could cover all of _____, and I looked at him and said, "Oooh, better not, I'm really stupid." Guess what? IT WORKED. He shuffled around awkwardly and finally said, "OK, well...you can...draw the flag...or something." 

Joke's on you, bitch. 

Makin' friends.