Warm Up That Cold Shoulder

There is a distinctly unfriendly side to Harvard. You feel it when after meeting many new faces during our orientation week, we promptly stop saying "hi" to the others we met once we figure out which is our crowd. It comes out in the way we meet people at parties at night, and then when we see them the next day, we don't even address them. It comes out when we can have lunch with somebody and then a few hours later pass right by them on the street without even nodding.

Now, admittedly, I can be the worst villain in this regard--I suffer from my own insecurities and can be very passive. There are certainly people I know on campus, people I don't dislike, but people whom I don't address when I pass them on the street.

But one day this past week, I decided to try something different. Each time I walked to and from the Quad, I insisted on saying hello to everybody I passed, both those I recognized and even those I didn't. And the result? It actually turned out to be quite a success. I reintroduced myself to lots of people I once knew, I met people I recognized but had never been introduced to and I even spoke a bit with some random passers-by. Though it was more of a psychology experiment than a real social situation, it reminded me that most people are very friendly but often have their guard up in public.

Harvard is a particularly easy place for this sort of gut reaction. Given the fact that many students here are very bright and strongly intellectual, most people are very quick to pick up on signals and interpret them in one way or another. For instance, if John is strolling through the yard and passes Marc, who he barely knows, looking down at the ground, John quickly surmises that Marc doesn't recognize him or doesn't like him. No matter if it was an intentional brush off, John will decide that he and Marc are not on speaking terms.

There is a good chance that henceforth, the two will probably pass in silence. In their next situation, perhaps John and Marc will recognize each other as they pass by, but both will wonder why the other doesn't say anything, and both will be afraid to say "hi" to the other. Though each will preserve some pride, through the lack of interaction, nobody wins.

How crazy is this? Would we ever not be nice to a friend of a friend out in the real world?

This interpretation may be my own illusion, but I would bet that many other students have the same impressions. Though Harvard is a large place, and complete school familiarity is unfeasible, the cold shoulder is not always a result of somebody forgetting someone else's name or one person not remembering where he met another. Though that may be part of the explanation, there's something more, something unique to Harvard and other intellectual settings.

In no way am I suggesting that everybody greet and act friendly with everybody else, especially those people you just don't like. Anybody who has seen a certain episode of "Seinfeld" knows that saying hello to everybody around is you is completely futile and extremely annoying. It is, after all, everybody's God-given right to be mean.

But these decisions ought to be brought about with a good bit of information. Before writing off others, we really ought to be sure we don't like them. We have our whole lives after college to retire into our own worlds--in the meantime, we ought to try to build a progressive Harvard community which is accepting of others and not so quick to pass judgment.

The reason is simple: by not interacting seriously with many people, each of us gives up the chance to meet and make the friends best suited to us.

This argument is directed especially toward first-years on campus. This year, in speaking with first-years, I am amazed at how many of them are not thrilled with their experiences at Harvard. Very often, they feel the community is rather cliquish, each person having his or her own friends and trying to surround him- or herself with the so-called "right people."

As for older students, I am only now learning how it works. The argument has been made that large blocking groups have created cliquish tendencies within Houses. Indeed, it does seem that many students today have kept the same group of friends they made their first year without expanding very much--moreover, many of these friends are roommates, hallmates or teammates from the first year.

This makes an ever stronger case for sophomores to address the problem, before retreating into the trap as juniors and seniors. Though maintaining very tight friendships with a few classmates is central for our happiness, it is crucial to be outwardly accepting and allow oneself to cultivate new friendships to complement the old.

After my experiment last week, I do have much hope for Harvard. There really is the potential for such a strong and unique community at Harvard--one which is not plagued with a passive student body, but with perceptive and intense young adults, seeking to understand and be understood by others and not afraid to show their eagerness.

We will be unhappy when we graduate if we don't honestly feel like we have met many people who really understand us. At the moment, how many people are we intrigued by, yet afraid to approach blindly and start up a conversation? Let's drop our masks and try to get out and meet new faces, hoping to find new and different companions as we continue to grow and mature.

Joseph E. Subotnik '00 is a physics concentrator in Pforzheimer House.