People get closer when they drink together.
We open up to people and share things we would otherwise find it hard to talk about when sober. This seems to help explain why college friendships sometimes sprout from drunken confidence in the bathroom line.
I understand these slurred conversations can’t necessarily be translated into everyday activities, but we should make a personal effort to stop limiting them to 2 a.m. in Taco Bell.
Sober conversations need an upgrade. We shouldn’t be limited to comments on the weather and upcoming vacation plans. Unfortunately, more often than not, people stick to these topics because we fear the unknown.
We build walls and never bother to take them down. It’s a natural safety mechanism everyone is guilty of. It’s not bad. It’s just getting old.
You can know someone for years and not know a single deep thing about them because you aren’t asking the right questions.
I don’t want to know that you hate the spring time and cloudy mornings, I want to know why you feel that way.
Friendships and relationships are based off walls being taken or broken down, and this is where we run into problems with conversations in today’s society.
Spring Invitational is this week. All the incoming freshmen are touring campus and desperately trying to make friendships that will sustain until the fall.
This is a good time to reflect on our freshman year friendships and think about how they started. We can even go further than that and think about how our high school friendships started.
In simpler times, we bonded over long talks and common interests.
Now it seems people have gotten comfortable sticking to safer topics instead of delving into deeper conversations with friends. You know your conversation is shot to hell when you get awkwardly asked about your winter break plans eight months in advance.
We’re in college and this is when we can define ourselves and express to people who we are. If someone doesn’t like what you tell them, you can move on and find someone who will. There’s no point in making friends with people you can’t talk to about personal things.
There’s no substance in that.
That’s the beauty of going to a school with 30,000 students. There’s bound to be people we can connect with and hold meaningful conversations with; people who want to know about our past and future ambitions.
But instead of finding these people and pursuing purposeful talks, we limit ourselves to mindless, shallow conversations. We are comfortable at this level because it doesn’t challenge us to ask important questions and answer ones in return. One little word has a lot of power. “Why?”
People tend to shy away from these talks because they’re scared. But there’s no reason to be scared of asking questions. Asking why is not rude. It can be personal, yes, but I don’t know when it became so forbidden to get personal with people.
I’m not saying we should go up to random strangers on the street and strike up a conversation about a recent breakup, but it would make for a more interesting walk to the store.
If anything, we should have these conversations with our friends. I’m starting to realize the importance of understanding people and their motives for things. If anyone in this world should care about another person’s emotional and mental state, it’s their friends.
Sure, some relationships will originate from the bars of Baton Rouge, but what happens after is our choice.
We owe it to ourselves to let people get to know the real us. We owe it to others to get to know the real them. So stop talking about the weather and start asking about the storm.
Annette Sommers is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Dublin, Calif.