Study groupies

Due to the fact that I’m a badass, all of my byte-sized acquaintances become my best friends just before finals.

As you can imagine, this wears on a person. This is especially true when that person tries time and time again to invite these same people to random, secret camping trips to the mountains and nobody comes.

For a long time, the fact that people were completely unreliable was a normal state of affairs for me. It never bothered me that nobody planned ahead more than a week in advance for anything worthwhile and only my current circle of friends was willing to get together randomly and at the last minute.

Then it hit me: Other people’s plans should never affect mine.

Some types of events are more fun with groups. Renting a skybox would be quite lonely if you did that for yourself every year. Other events could go either way without much drama: lunch, errands, sleep. Still other things could only be done in a group by the strangest people (anything in the bathroom and a few things in the bedroom).

There is a state of mind necessary for each and every time we, as people, prepare to do something, how we prepare is coloured by who we expect to do that something with us. It is only when this turns out differently that we notice our planning was flawed and feel appropriately disappointed/pleased by it. It’s as if you heard a fire engine and expected it to be red only to have it arrive a bright shade of lemon.

. . . the previous analogy only works if red fire engines excite you and yellow fire engines bitterly depress you.

A much safer and– I think– adaptable way of doing things is to be just as willing to do things alone as you would to do them in a group.

Would I study Sunday if nobody else showed up? Probably. Would I go bowling? Probably not.

When you start doing things for the sake of doing them rather than as methods to spend time with people you enjoy, you start making plans you enjoy much more. That way, if people actually show up, it’s an added bonus rather than a meaningless occurrence.

Due to the fact that I’m a badass, all of my byte-sized acquaintances become my best friends just before finals. As you can imagine, this wears on a person. This is especially true when that person tries time and time again to invite these same people to random, secret camping trips to the mountains and…