Random Stranger Friends

It looks like YU Blog?! has gone public.  I guess that means I’ve graduated to blogging an actual blog.  Blog-tastic.

I’ve still yet to figure out the point of this whole thing, but that will probably surface over time.  My general focus is going to be YU.  Hence the name, “YU Blog!?”  I’ve been here long enough that I should have at least a few things to say about this place.

Over the last four years, I’ve realized a few drawbacks about sticking around one place for too long.  What amazes me the most is how many people I know only because they say “Hi” to me when I see them around campus.  I have no idea who these people are.  Its not like I’ve just forgotten their names; I doubt if I’ve ever known them.  

And there are lots of them.  I’m sure everybody knows a few people only well enough to recognize them, but not well enough to know their names.  But I sometimes wonder if I have more friends I know, or more of these random stranger friends who think I know them, when in fact I couldn’t place them for the life of me.

They all have that YU look.  The look that says, “Hey, I’m a YU guy” even in Times Square or some random subway.  Do I look that way? Maybe that’s why they say hi to me in the first place.  Not because they know me, but because I have that YU look that only makes them think they know me…

The problem is they all seem to know my name and other intimate facts about my life.  “So, Alex, how were your holidays?  Did you go to Chicago, or stay in Wisconsin?”  In any other setting that would freak me out.  In the comfort and security of YU, though, I just smile and pretend that we’re old buddies.  “Ya, thank G-d, how were yours?  It’s good to see you.”  Maybe I should be afraid.

It’s come to the point where I can recognize these random stranger friends.  Thus, I can preempt their “Hello’s” with a greeting of my own.  That way, they think I have some idea who the hell they might be.  Sometimes I think about asking them how I know them, or how they know me, or what their fucking names are.  Unfortunately, my charade has gone on far too long.  I’ve been “friends” with these people for too many years to start asking questions now.

Is my memory that bad that I’ve forgotten all these people I once knew in some class, or from some event?  Or are there minions of Grange-stalkers out there who pretend that we’re friends just to freak me out?

If any of you are reading this, just assume that I do, in fact, know who you are.  I don’t want to figure out how I know my random stranger friends at the expense of weirding out my real friends.  And if the truth must be known, I’ve grown attached to both groups.  My real friends are good for what normal friends are good for-support, hanging out, whatever.  My random stranger friends keep things interesting when I walk around campus.  

YU wouldn’t be the crazy place it is without both.