Last week in class, the professor placed everyone into groups to analyze some poetry. In my group, I tried speaking to a girl to facilitate the project and make the work go more quickly. After 15 minutes of blatant disinterest from her, I asked her a question out of frustration: “You don’t meet that many motivated people, do you?”
To which her response was a shrug, and then this gem: “No frat, no care.” She didn’t look up as she continued picking at her fingernails.
OK, Arizona, we need to have a talk.
This isolated incident represents more than just a single conversation; it reveals a collective mindset on this campus. The incessant closing-off when meeting new people poisons the atmosphere for everyone and, in effect, severely limits the “college experience.” If you’re the type to not respond to others in class, at parties and at club gatherings, you’re actively participating in High School 2.0. In case you can’t already tell, college is supposed to be that time in life where everyone grows up; part of this is ignoring your preconceived stereotypes and opening up your boundaries. Unfortunately, there’s a heavy case being made against our “Internet Generation” and its increasing levels of eccentricity (read: rate of general failure). The New York Times went so far as to ask the question in August 2010: “What Is It About 20-Somethings?”
We’re losing this fight, guys. Badly.
While technology likely has much to do with the decreasing social tendencies of our generation’s best and brightest, it isn’t the sole cause. In my personal experience, it has much to do with a low work ethic, a sense of entitlement in many rich kids growing up in American suburbia and generally the highest level of “crap tolerance” the world has seen yet.
In a strange twist of logic, the further people progress in their college careers, the more closed off they become. As social circles establish themselves and grow more set in stone, there’s an inherent disadvantage for outsiders: the inability to force their way in. On top of the general disinterest and expectation that others will come to you, the intimidating level of familiarity among most established “friend groups” makes it nigh-impossible to break through these aforementioned barriers. Hard to feel good about your chances if you plan on trying to expand your social circle any time soon.
Don’t panic quite yet, everyone, because we have an easy fix: Put down the iPad, log off of Facebook, ignore a text for more than a few minutes, look around when you go outside and move past your current ideas of what makes a person worthwhile and what doesn’t. It might just blow your mind and make you a few new friends in the process (whether they’re in a frat or not).
— Joe Dusbabek is a senior studying French and linguistics. He can be reached at arts@wildcat.arizona.edu.
