You’re slowly walking down the corridor towards the library, mildly celebrating the survival of your worst lesson. While you should be thinking about what to revise and the academic future, your mind is instead focused on what podcast to listen to after college, the annoyance of self service checkouts and lemurs. Your mind is at ease, completely separated from society to repress your overwhelming feeling of inadequacy.
‘Hi, how are you?’ A person is in front of you, trying to interact. They’re smiling, ready to talk. Who are they? Their identity is somewhere in the back of your mind, you know, tucked alongside that pop song everyone was talking about and that book you half finished (or half started) every morning…no, it’s not there. ‘Umm…hello.’ Attempting to act like you have every idea who this individual is, you smile, waving your arm like an electrified starfish, expressing your wide-ranging ability at human interaction. They know you don’t know them. They can tell, it’s in their eyes. Whoever they are. At the rate of an ant, you continue shuffling along the corridor, bowing your head and indicating a finger to the library, though it’s nowhere near, as the reason for your departure. They smile again, but look slightly uncomfortable, themselves confused as to why you don’t stop to chat. After all, exams are not for three weeks. Buckets of time to cram revise. The walking commences. Internally, you believe the positive outcome of this situation would be if the ground swallowed you up. Then at least, there would be something else to think about other than your own failu- GOT THEIR NAME! You remember them! Though your external facial expression remains blank and neutral, Olympic standard for a passport photo, inside your head is buzzing with memories of the person you talked to, well, twice about half a decade ago. A short glance, an attempt at returning to the conversation to have a proper discussion, rebelliously abandoning a trip to the library, is soon dismissed. There they sit, talking to others in the café, tables pushed together to stimulate the conversation. Walking up to celebrate remembering who they are, despite that being the very topic you were trying to keep secret from them, would never happen. The library awaits. Recognise any of this? For me, this sequence of events, a formula greater than Pythagoras’ theorem, has occurred more times than the number of teas I’ve ever drunk. Yes, walking along, head in the clouds, another universe, before suddenly being surprised by someone who, while certain of who I am, is ready for me to play ‘Guess Who I Am?’ is such a frequent occurrence. I laugh with delight and mild shock if it doesn’t take place at least once a week. I name this awkward intensifying, human petrifying, brain freezing, mind blanking, cliché producing state of being: spontaneous socialisation. I don’t claim to be any sort of sociologist. While I really enjoy the subject (though there are so many names to learn!) and would certainly recommend it for learning about the wider world, the sociologists we learn about are on another scale of thought. Whether it’s Becker with teachers, Haramalbos with the Blues, Shape and schoolgirls or Douglas at parents evening, they did research. My theory is based purely on my own experience. Yet I believe it’s something we all have the potential to suffer from. Think about it. Does anyone really enjoy endless socialising? Unless you’re the type that morphs into a hermit crab when left alone, bored out of your mind, I think there are all times where we long for our own company. Therefore, when the loss of our own company takes place, no longer able to binge watch ‘Game of Thrones’ or pointless YouTube videos, we want to know about it. That’s why everyone has five calendars, right? Physical and online. We like to know, as humans, when we are interacting with individuals, out of choice or not, and where we are going. This is not only because of our innate eternal love for occasionally being alone, able to stare into space, contemplating the future while doing absolutely nothing about it. Being aware that socialisation is going to take place at a certain time with certain people allows us to prepare social norms: how we look, what we say, the way we speak. We are all different around different people. While parts of our personality may transcend and penetrate everything we do, our manner of speaking – our register, if you’re doing A-level Combined English – is varied. Why shouldn’t it be? There are topics we will confine in certain people, those to whom we can endlessly rant and moan about the world. There are also people who we wouldn’t dare, for matters of social etiquette, dream of discussing our opinions. My theory totally bypasses this process of preparation. The spontaneity of the socialisation, a person I hadn’t expected to see, gives me no time to think of conversation topics, how I will speak to them, let alone who they are. My focus on trying to remember these things, which I would have had plenty of time to do if the socialisation was planned, disrupts my dialogue – the human body can only do so much at once. On top of this is the knowledge I look and sound awkward, due to my confusion. The same spiral of chaos merges into reality. So, what do we (or I) do? Plan every single occasion down to the second when I meet the other person? No, of course not. Life would be a deflated hot air balloon or capsized lifeboat. Surprising, unexpected events is what makes life life. Instead, there should be a recognition of what this spontaneous socialisation can do. Socialising pros, the sort who can talk to anyone at any time, however well they know them, can strut the unexpected interaction off. For those, like myself, who need to time to remember who someone is and how I know them, as well as conversation topics, there should be an understanding that we all have a million things to think about. This is not helped by an age of obsessing about how we appear to others. Read a book, snap a mate (if you must) while you’re waiting. Spontaneous socialisers unite! (Now, add me to the sociologist Wikipedia page…)
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