Finding the reflection of time in social burnout
On an orientation week that onboarded a class of nearly 800 people
Digital information or personas have the ability to provide an easy available look-up and to disappear once the scroll continues. But when a class of nearly 800 people are forced to socialize with each other during a whole week, I was severely tested. Because I cannot index nearly 800 new names, faces, the number and kind of dogs, the qualifications of aunts, the merits of one's prior employers and repeat the same trite information about myself till I am hoarse. It's Saturday as I write this, and I have sincerely felt that if I had to introduce myself to one more person, I will end up committing murder.
When I had started this blog, it was (and still remains) my main mode to practice creative non-fiction writing. I tried to merge in themes about what I was reading with what I was feeling. I am insecure and embarrassed to represent something like a diary to a public eye, and long-time readers know that I was a lot worse at masking my insecurities then than I am now. Unfortunately, I find myself echoing a lot of themes about time, recursion of time, its perception and measurement often.
Age is a matter of many DEI conversations, and I have also found myself fixated on it. And it's not because 29 is an astonishing number at business school. There are many peers my age. But age doesn't matter because ultimately we all experience time differently. At 29, I am on the cusp of a decade. There is something that 19 year old me would have wanted that I feel like I forgot to achieve. There will be something that 39 year old would have wished I started doing already. What these exact somethings are may never be known to me simultaneously. Or maybe, I punt that responsibility to 39-year old me.
A bane of corporate existence and of introducing yourself as an adult is having a roster of Fun Facts that you should be able to roll-out. Since I spent Day 1 of this week workshopping my top 3 fun-facts with nearly 70 people, I was prepared to invent a fresh set on Day 2. Now, I understand why superficial introductions have to happen. I understand that intimacy cannot be purchased without paying the cost of time, so I'm okay with these people not knowing the real me (and vice versa). If anything, once my roster of fun facts is worked through, I worry that all of the peels that create the entity called Peels will fall apart. But the problem with these bland fun facts is that in no way is my brain capable of holding onto this trivia in a sea of 800 new people. I find that I simply cannot remember people with facts anymore and very rarely do I encounter someone who inspires a genuine emotional attachment (which is far easier for me to remember).
Worse, I remember them with the fact that I cannot cite to their face. For example, there's a guy in the 19 new group chats that our incoming class has formed who I have termed Abs. This is because, to me, this man has made his abs his entire personality. Abs introduced himself to us by describing an inspiring weight-loss journey (this is fine, although a bit personal to share with faculty members, in my opinion). Since then, I have been in about 19 group chats with this man (although I have not had to interact with him personally yet). He lives in my building and seems to be inclined towards taking similar classes like I am. Every single image that Abs has used to identify himself stems from one particular night in a hotel room wherein he has a towel wrapped suggestively around his lower waist and he is smirking at the mirror in what can be described politely as seductive confidence. I am aware of the exact utility and function of such images because I have also received nudes in my lifetime, and unfortunately, it has already given me the ick. Fateful will be the day when I encounter Abs in the elevator as that will be the true test of my manners and patience.
This week, my rotation of fun facts includes the following: I used to write sketches and produce comedy shows, I have a rare blood group and I am obsessed with time. These are "fun" for nobody, vampires and nobody, respectively. Therefore, some other fun facts I have considered deploying are:
I'm passionate about food, especially the one(s) that keep(s) me alive.
I enjoy watching shows like Friends or Harry Potter or the Office, both of which defined entire generations of media and thus also defined me, a cultural product of those generations.
Reader, I desperately wish to be less fun. I wish we didn't have to do this rigmarole of finding ways to be interesting but instantly. I wish we could let time work its magic instead of trying to foster these superficial bonds which will be eroded or solidified with time. For once, I am asking time to be actively involved in my life. I have come to a point of lying about my fun facts too, because it is possible for me to conjure up a fun fact that I may not have yet –such as the number of undetected homicides can I be provoked to if I introduce myself to 300 new people.
Perhaps I could be trying to dig deeper than the superficial by joining the hordes of these group chats assembled at numerous bars right now. Perhaps then, I could be cheating time and forming the kind of intimate connections that don't need mnemonics to remember. Perhaps time will soon shape this list of nonsense trivia about hundreds of people into brilliant, insightful displays of personality. Perhaps, this social burnout is a way to experience how little time I have to myself, and that by being here, by focusing on the very texture of time itself, I claim back its equilibrium.