My mommy told me not to talk to strangers

It’s Tuesday morning, and you have a lecture in about 20 minutes — enough time to grab a quick breakfast. You walk into the dining hall with your tray and are immediately confronted with a rather tricky decision. Should you go join one of the many students sitting alone or conform to the general pattern and just eat by yourself? “Sit alone,” you conclude, as always. So you move towards one of the — oh no! Etiquette demands that you maintain a strict radius of at least two chairs on either side of you, and there aren’t any seats that fit that criterion! Oh well, better just make do with one on either side for today. So you begin to eat. Oops! Did that girl misinterpret your absentminded surveying of the general area for a deliberate glance in her direction? Did she think that you might actually want to start a conversation? Better just look down and concentrate on your bagel. Any extraneous eye-movement could be misunderstood.

We began our freshman years eagerly and somewhat frantically introducing ourselves to anybody who happened to come within two feet of us. We painstakingly memorized selected or fabricated “fun facts” about ourselves to incorporate as quickly as possible into conversation. We spoke to people with the intention of making ourselves sound simultaneously outgoing, aloof, intriguing, funny, intelligent and witty — thus coming across, more often than not, as complete idiots. But we made the effort. Nowadays, at least on the freshman scene, it seems that most of us have extinguished the inclination to spontaneously meet new people. Instead, we have barricaded ourselves into a hastily formed comfort zone and rarely venture out of it.

Dining halls are a perfect example of this attitude. Better to sit alone, bored out of your mind and with nobody to complain about the food than to start up a conversation with a stranger. And on the rare occasions where overcrowded tables force us to — oh the horror! — sit next to someone new and talk to them, we never exchange names anymore. A friend of mine once called them “the nameless conversations.” It is actually possible to have a half-hour long talk with somebody, find that you have tons of common interests and opinions, enjoy yourself thoroughly and still not break this name barrier until much later, if at all.

The same goes for our living situations. We become intimately familiar with all the endearing or weird habits of our roommates, we become close to some people in our RCA groups, we bond with a few people in our hallway or on our floor — but it stops there. If you pass by somebody you don’t know, which happens frequently, there’s never a casual “Do you live here? I don’t think I’ve met you before.” Instead, there’s something along the lines of pretending your door is stuck.

I’m just as guilty as everyone else. But at the same time, I recognize and resent the fact that I’m doing it. I know that we have several polished and wonderful excuses kept ready: I’m really stressed, and I’m not capable of being my usual social and bubbly self right now; I’m trying to think of the answer to my physics problem, and I’m doing all the calculations in my head; I’m scared that I’ll choke if I eat and talk at the same time; I’m not even really functional at the moment because I’m so sleep-deprived; I need to chew each bite of food exactly 20 times because it’s good for my digestion, and I don’t want to be rude by talking with my mouth full. We’ve got our reasons, and they will stand strong against any scrutiny or criticism.

I realize that we don’t do it deliberately. I recognize that it isn’t easy to break out of our comfort zones. But I believe that we’re limiting our Princeton experiences by not branching out a little more. Keith Griffin ’10 insightfully wrote about how we frequently ignore acquaintances from lab sessions or precepts; this becomes even worse when added to the idea that we’re restricting the number of people whom we connect with in the first place. It’s clear that there are still many interesting people out there to meet and interact with, so why are we wasting the opportunity? Most of us break out temporarily at the beginning of freshman year but then retreat back into the warm, comfortable insulation of a set group and a clearly defined routine. College is supposed to be about breaking out of your comfort zone, not retreating within it. But we seem to go to extraordinary lengths to limit our “breaking out” as much as possible.

The good thing is that it’s not a difficult phenomenon to rectify. So next time we’re in the dining hall, let’s break down the two-chair barrier, tear our eyes away from our usual mind-numbing contemplation of inanimate objects, make eye contact and say “hi” to the person next to us. Chances are they’re more engaging than the bagel.

Camille Framroze is a freshman from Bombay, India. She can be reached at framroze@princeton.edu.