Let's talk about my MIT interview.
Actually, it was such a horrific experience that I prefer not to talk about it. But let's talk about this specific part.
I have no idea what he asked, but at one point I started talking about my school atmosphere. It started off okay, but it got pretty negative pretty fast as I started talking about the difficulty of making friends even though I try to be nice to everyone. I said all of that with tears in my eyes. Uggh. Imagine how desperately I was trying to remain emotionally neutral, but I couldn't shift out of fifth gear.
When I finally got my head together, thinking okay maybe I should show some sort of understanding or philosophy or something, I concluded with, "But this has taught me the that not everyone can be a friend. Some people just aren't going to want to befriend you, no matter how nice and kind you are."
The response I got? The most duh, isn't that sort of obvious? look and "Yes, that is true..."
This guy didn't get me at all. Actually, for anyone who has never really experienced this kind of environment, to the point that you've almost completely given up on making friends, they can't possibly, fully understand that realizing that not everyone can be a friend is actually a huge revelation. People like me who are nice and sensitive take a lot longer to understand this sort of thing.
It's always sort of baffled me that I try so hard to be nice and open and caring and my friend turnover rate is incredibly low. Maybe I'm the problem, as my interviewer roundaboutly suggested. But how? How could I be the problem when I am the nice one?
There is another layer of complexity to this problem. So, I sort of gave up actively making friends a while ago. And now, I'm somehow making friends.
For example, the girl I sit next to in psychology, who has told the class that humans make her stressed and that she wants to be a mortician (see the correlation?), completely surprised me one week by quietly saying "hi" to me as I walked in. Then, she surprised me a few weeks ago as I was leaving by wishing me a good spring break. THEN. Last week everybody had left the room except us. She started a conversation with me.
This is the girl who has not said a word all year.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about it. I may be on my way out of this place, but I appreciate positive interaction.
This is also not the first time somebody who seems like they don't want to be friends with anyone has wanted to befriend me.
I can't understand any of it. And now, I don't know how to make friends going forward. Do I try the "nice" route and probably get them to just ignore me, or do I ignore them and let them come to me? I don't know. I guess being nice scares some people away. Which is really, really strange to me, if you couldn't tell already.
Perhaps I can maximize my friend turnover rate by alternating both methods. That sounds like the most ridiculous thing ever, but it seems to sort of be working.
Uggh. Anyway. I appreciate that I've somehow been able to win my current friends. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave to go sit in a classroom and ignore everyone to make them befriend me.
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