The Happy Outsider
Why is everyone cuddling? It’s late at night, you’re at a friend’s house, or you’re in the dorms, and you and you’re “other” are cuddling. You’re whispering sweet nothings to each other, while the other one giggles along. It’s cute, but it’s in the middle of the movie. In short, you’re pissing people off, and you probably have been for a long time.
They say College is the time for knowledge and exploration, and it’s where you will forge relationships that will last a lifetime. I feel as if I’ve done that, but some people have taken this to the extreme. They’ve fallen in love. Whippy for them. The rest of us, are just trying to get by.
Everyone has the right to be in love, don’t get me wrong, but why now? And why in front of everyone else? And, as fast as they are going, how could they actually be in love? Two of my friends exchanged “I love you” by the third date. The. Third. Date. Well, thanks for giving someone else a chance. To coincide with that, half of the RA’s on the Morningside Campus have fallen in love or gotten engaged within the last two years. Am I the only single person at the party?
The answer is no. In fact, I would believe that the grand majority of people are single, and if they are dating, they haven’t found their “soul mate” yet. We’re the real Silent Majority. We go about our days without needing to be surgically removed from someone. We go to class, we work, we shower, we eat, we sleep, repeat. We do not yet have the luxury of spilling all of our tiny inconveniences on someone that actually cares. We have all the things that bother us flowing through our brain at a million miles an hour, and anyone we spill this to, couldn’t actually care less, because they dealing with the same problems.
In the midst of it all, one can feel anger at the overabundance of love that surrounds us. But, angry as I am that all the good people are quickly taken before I even get my shot in (thanks again, buddy), I can’t help but be filled with happiness when I am around these people.
We could think of ourselves as the Silent Majority, the sad saps that love hasn’t seemed to find yet, or we could realize that we are the Lucky Few. We have friends that are in love. Surely our friends’ happiness should make us happy. And, there is the added benefit that we watched it all happen. It’s like a romantic comedy playing out right in front of us. We witnessed the “meet-cute,” all the adorable and emotional moments, and now, three years later, our closest friends are engaged. Now, if that isn’t enough for the average person, there is more just below the surface.
As we go on with our happy lives, we will most likely find that we are friends with a person. Very rarely will we run into situations where we like both people in a coupling. Husbands are friends with husbands, and wives are friends with wives. But, in College, we have the special ability of befriending both sides of the couple. We go to class with the boyfriend, and we go to class with the girlfriend. They are a part of the group. And before you know it, you care about strangers that are in love. Or, better yet, your two friends are strangers that fall in love. How amazing is that?
What makes this such an interesting dynamic is the gender politics that we must play. As we get older and our tempers decrease, or we get a better understanding for one another, gender politics becomes a virtual non issue. It’s a world of pros. But in College, it’s a messy business. It’s like Game of Thrones mixed with House of Cards, and I’m Chandler from Friends. Little do you know that there are benefits to being Chandler, the funny guy, or person outside the mess. For the “perfect couple” cannot stay perfect forever. No, everyone must fight. And, at first, there is an idea of betrayal. We can play the Game; we can live in the House. Now is the chance. We can steal our dream; she belongs with us anyway. Or, you hold the man you’ve pined for, these long years. It’s only clever tactic away. But, this idea disappears as quickly as it manifests. We realize that we don’t want the person, we want their friendship. But, now the “perfect couple,” our best friends, are fighting. So, the outsider goes to work, and we roll up our sleeves and dive in head first.
We offer perspective. Same genders understand each other. A man understands a man, and he can make him feel like he isn’t crazy. Like he still has friends in the world. We understand each other because we are men. Then, we go to the woman. She sits there in tears, or maybe stewing with anger boiling just below the surface. So, you sit down. You put your arm around her, and you give her the one thing that all her female friends can never give, perspective. You understand how men think. You know why your friend acted like such a dumbass. And you become the conduit for these two people loving each other once again.
The same applies for women. This is not a male thing. All people can understand each other. Sometimes, it just takes someone from the outside to look in and sort the mess out. And, while everyone else around us falls in love, we forge these friendships that will last a lifetime. We build both academic knowledge that will carry us to great careers and human understanding that will give us happier lives.
One day, we will find Mr./Mrs. Right. We’re just too busy keeping up with crowd to notice each other. And in the middle of all that, it can seem like the most infuriating thing in the world. Everyone smooching, and cuddling, and reciting Shakespeare (No, just the Theatre kids? Okay). It’s slightly gross, and it is obnoxious if we’re trying to listen to important plot points, but to stand back and look as an outsider, we become happy with others’ happiness.
This is we are the Lucky Few in the College world. Once we move in to the “real world.” The opportunity for this to happen occurs less and less. Not only do we have time on our hands, but we have friends on both ends of the relationship spectrum. But that time is quickly running out. So, we must take in all we can while we have the chance. All we must do is sit back and listen.
You cover a lot of ground here, Riley. Focus.
You are developing a good tone/voice. Have you ever watched Jim Gaffigan’s editorial pieces. There’s a similarity. But they’re short. 2-3 minutes. Which means they need to be focused. People’s attention and understanding only go so far.