Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The Sacred Art of Keeping Your Door Open

There is a phenomena that occurs in college that I had never experienced before.  Amid these long corridors with their bright decorations and kitschy little name plates, there lie the Open Doors.

Imagine: you are new to college.  You are somewhat creeped out by your roommate and you don't know anyone except her.  You could wallow in a cupboard full of books and never speak to anyone except your pencil.  Or.  You could open your door.

People are always walking up and down the halls and no one wants to do anything alone so, if you keep your door open, there will often be people popping in asking you if you want to get lunch or walk to class or help them study Spanish because everyone knows you are boss at Spanish and are in awe of your plethora of skillz.  That way, you actually meet people with limited social awkwardness.

The rules of the Open Door:
1 - close your door when you are asleep, changing, wearing headphones, changing, playing loud music, changing, or taking a picture of your elbow so that it looks like a butt.  Seriously.  No one wants to hear/see/interrupt that.
2 - reciprocate the visits.  Go see other people, get them to go to lunch with you, or ask if you can study with them.  People will think you secretly hate them if you never come over.
3 - if you happen to secretly hate someone (because she was studying in your room and you turned around and saw her eating a gummy shark out of your secret stash of gummy sharks), don't lead them on.  Just stop reciprocating and they will forget about you and your secret stash of gummy sharks.
4 - Don't over do it.  Some people like to be alone.  Don't be that person that is constantly wandering the halls looking for someone to steal food from.  Those people get their mattresses stolen.

Meeting people is priority numero uno for the first month so have as many conversations as possible.  But remember: everyone has the same conversation eight million times ("What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "What are you majoring in?" "Do you mind if I stab myself in the face now?"), so come up with some awesome new questions to pop into people's door ways with.
"If you were a carpet, would you be friends with the rugs or would they be a different species?"
"When I saw the word 'chupacabra' do you think of CSI Miami or the Discovery Channel?"
"Would you be opposed to helping me short-sheet my roommate?"
If you ask questions like that, people will remember you.  They may not like you, they may keep their doors closed after that, but they WILL remember you.

4 comments:

  1. Here at Lawrence, we have a similar situation. According to our Campus Life directors, "open doors make happy floors!"

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  2. I love these!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep posting!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Thanks guys :) let me know what else you want me to write about!

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