God dammit, bringing your entire fucking friend group to college should be against the rules. Because the whole ‘get to know new people thing’ is already this shittiest thing I can fathom, without you already having inside jokes and significant glances with the 5 other people in the ice-breaker game group.

Something else that is odd: I keep my dorm door open. Pretty much all the time. I mean, why the hell not? I want to get to know the people on my floor and stuff. But having people walk by, glance in, and say NOTHING, is super awkward. Or, even worse, is when there is a moment of eye contact, there’s a half wave-y thing and/or a head nod, and then you never say anything to each other EVER. AGAIN.

Small talk is the pits. I just want to have real conversations about real things that I care about. I want to make real friends, not these weird topical ‘We might be friends, but probably not.” things that are running rampant. I know it takes time, and college is new and exciting blah blah blah, but I just hate this transition period. I’m already kinda retarded quirky, and this whole social interaction thing just got kicked up to an extreme level of awkward. Literally floors and floors and floors of people I have never met. Entire 7 story buildings of people I will make awkward eye contact with.

But I just keep introducing myself. And I keep smiling. And telling weird jokes.

Because that’s how this mermaid does it.

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming! What do we do, we swim, swim!”

-AM