You Know Who You Are

To whom it may concern:

I don't know you, but you know me. You know me from the picture on the ID card you picked up off the ground a week ago at the end of Stats 100 class. You know me from using my card at the Greenhouse within 10 minutes after class ended, a little after noon, when better food could have been had for free anywhere else. That night you used my card to order a pizza, and then cleaned out the rest of my Board Plus on another noontime Greenhouse purchase the next day.

As I sit here today in Stats 100, I look around and wonder who you are.

Are you the guy sitting alone and scribbling notes in front of me or the one peacefully sleeping two seats down? Are you talking and laughing in a group of kids, or did you just skip class today and have another Greenhouse lunch? Are you looking at me right now, guiltily wondering how I reacted to the theft, or are you totally oblivious to me, even though I sat down again in the same place?

I don't know, and right now, I don't care. A week ago I would have said that I trusted my classmates at Harvard, a group of people so exceptional in every other respect, that they should naturally be morally superior as well. I trusted them not to walk into my dorm room and steal my computer. I trusted them not to swipe my TI-83 off my desk in the library when I went to the bathroom. I trusted them to return my ID card to me when I lost it.

Indeed, the first thing I did when I discovered the card missing was to check my e-mail, hoping that you had e-mailed me to come get my card, as I have done before for so many people.

I still do trust you. They say that Harvard isn't a perfect place, that people are flawed here just as they are everywhere else, but I still don't really believe it. We live together in a community, a bizarre and unique one, and we should trust each other.

We have to trust each other, because we have no choice. We're stuck here together for four years, and we're going to have far too much to do with each other to hold grudges and lie in waiting for one another.

I hope that you enjoyed the adrenaline-rush of uselessly wasting my Board Plus money, and I'll see you around. You'll know me, I'll be the one logging forgetful classmates out of printers before using them, returning ID cards when I find them and checking my pockets before I leave class. --NEERAJ K. GUPTA