By: Ava C. Green, Editor-in-Chief
“Do you have any advice for meeting new people?”
I’d argue that the best part of this collegiate setting we’re all in is the seemingly endless surplus of new people we’re constantly surrounded by. A lot of times, we tell people, “Just go to events and join clubs you’re interested in!” We promise them that just showing up will guarantee new friends. And although I do believe in the power of task attraction, it has to be acted on.
I do think that going to events and joining organizations is a great place to start, but we neglect to help people figure out what to do once they’re actually there. You don’t want to be the first one there, but showing up late can be awkward. You can’t be too eager and scare people away, but looking too nonchalant may seem standoffish. If you don’t talk enough you’ll seem weird, but you don’t want to yap people’s ears off. All of these thoughts used to race through my head right before going to anything that had the prospect of meeting new people, until one day during my freshman year when my older sister hit me in the face with reality and said something like, “You know, no one really cares about what you’re doing.” Ouch, I thought. She saved herself though, saying, “They’re too busy worrying about the same things as you are; to worry about if you seem weird or not.”
I found this anxiety-driven anonymity kind of soothing to my anxieties and decided to capitalize off of the shared awkwardness of freshman year, new experiences and new people. I found myself more willing to approach people, introduce myself and really meet them when I thought of it as an effort to soothe their anxieties, instead of a fight to conquer my own.
Simply being around these new people is useless unless you do really meet them. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re going to have to put yourself out there at least a little. I hate doing it, you probably hate doing it, but what I hate even more is that it’s what really works. It’s foolproof, even, especially at Canisius.
The people here are nice, you guys. Like, so nice that I actually wonder what’s wrong with them sometimes. So nice that almost anyone you could approach is going to do what they can to help you out. I think we all know that in a small school, if you’re a jerk, word gets out quickly. We all know how hard it is to not be known at a small school like ours. More eyes are on us, and they’re eyes that will see us again. We don’t want to be known as a jerk, so – whether it's genuine or merely to save face – we don’t act like jerks. All of this is to say that introducing yourself to new people isn’t as scary as it seems, again, especially here.
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