I don’t
have many passions in life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m passionate about life on
the whole, but it is hard to decide about what I am most passionate at 11:51 on
a Thursday night. After scrapping a few ideas that were expensive, or illegal, or
dangerous, or some combination of the three, I narrowed down my interests to
three things: making friends, people watching, and cigarettes. So where the
hell do I go with this? Ladies and gentlemen, I present: The Lonely Hearts
Club.
Frequently,
while outside enjoying a bogue, I see people walk by alone. Not unusual, right?
Well in my usual people-watching, I notice the same people walking around
alone. I don’t know why, really; are they shy? Do they dislike people? Are they
deaf? It gets me thinking. I think about how difficult it is to meet people. I
think about how many people are on the campus, and how few people the average
person actually meets. I think about all the people that are worth meeting, but
aren’t outgoing enough to meet other people. These are, what we call in the
working world, problems.
To get to the bottom of these
problems, I’ve decided to begin an experiment. Here’s the premise: Any time I
am lounging about, be it eating, smoking, studying, or anything else, I’m going
to keep my eye out for people that are alone. Upon seeing a lone person, I’ll
approach them and give them an index card with my name and number. I’ll tell
them that I’m doing this for a class, of course, and give them the opportunity
to call me and meet up for lunch or coffee or what have you. Every week, I’ll
update this blog with the number of cards I’ve given out, the number of people
that have accepted these cards, and the number of people that actually call me.
I think this is a great opportunity to not only meet people, but also an
interesting sociology experiment. How many people do you think will call back?
How many will be genuinely interesting people? How many slaps to the face will
I get? The statistics overall should be an interesting commentary on the social
habits of people. If nothing else, I might get to know a few cool people, a concept
to which I certainly do not object. So the two questions I pose in this first
post are as follows: For every hundred people, how many will actually call back?
More importantly, if someone gave you a card, would you call?
