Dear Everyone I Meet Randomly:
I am writing this letter to save you the embarrassment and to save myself from the frustration of having the same conversation with you that I’ve had with countless others before you. If ever you find yourself inclined to pursue this conversation thread, I will henceforth refer you to this letter.
Yes, I go to Syracuse. It’s a large school. There are around 20,000 students at the school, in fact. On a given day, I pass around 1,000 of them. Minimum. On the quad, at Chuck’s, in the bookstore, walking to class. Of the 1,000 I pass, I’m lucky if I see one I know. This is because I do not stop and introduce myself to every single person I pass. If I did this, I would never get anything done. Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to introduce myself to 20,000 people?
Suppose I do see 1,000 per day. The average introduction, if I were to make it count, would last about 5 minutes. That’s 5,000 minutes per day. Unfortunately, the god-forsaken method of measuring time with which I was provided at a young age only allows for 1,440 minutes per day. This means that in order to ensure that I can introduce myself to everyone I see on campus, I first need to reinvent how time is measured.
I am not going to do that. Nor am I going to introduce myself to every single person I see on campus. It’s simply not realistic. So before you projectile-vomit the phrase, “It’s a long shot, but”¦” or “I have to ask”¦” I’m going to stop you. No, I do not know your friend. I don’t know your friend’s cousin. I don’t know your friend’s brother. I don’t know the random person you have some loose connection to. So I’ll stop you right now and tell you to move on to your next attempt at conversation.
“¦Oh, wait. Did you say Josh Greenberg?! No way! He lived on my floor freshman year, he’s my pong partner! Holy shit, what a small world!
(Photo by Vin Crosbie)
