Midway through the summer term, and I was still hanging out with my faithful few. Lamenting the loss of Michael Jackson still, I spent most of my afternoons in the park or at the gym listening to my favorite MJ hits. I'll admit this probably was not a healthy pattern, but at least I got a good cardio workout if I wasn't going to be social. Making friends seemed like so much work at the time, and even more so just plain AWKWARD. ("Awkward" is an awkward word to say and spell...how befitting.) I had spotted out a few people that I could probably be really good friends with, as they reminded me of all of the things I liked about my high school friends, but I still had them, in theory, so I didn't need duplicates. The only person that was just completely new to me, that I could tolerate in large doses, was this kid named Chris. He was pretty nerdy, but not socially awkward or obnoxious. One of the few males in the entire building that summer who's ego was small enough to fit through the front door.
We first met the first week of the semester on a tour of the campus and the media resources (a completely useless trip because 98% of us would never use it and the other 2% of us that did had to go on separate tours of the facilities later in our careers at the University.) This was a superficial meeting, however, where everyone goes around and just pretends to be best friends because we all are trying to convince ourselves that we have to in order to survive. It wasn't until the last two weeks of the semester that we actually had a real conversation. And this marked my first new friend since the week I moved into campus. The end of the semester was a joke. Our exams were mindless and everyone passed with flying colors. I will say that when we all moved out for the two weeks between the summer and fall semesters, I actually missed a few people. Progress? I think so.
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