The Pitfalls of Playing Nice

Published November 13, 2007

By Lauren Foley

As young, bright, awe-inspiring college students, we are generally expected to be exceedingly friendly to our peers. Failure to say hello to someone in passing can undoubtedly hinder your reputation, especially if it is perceived as an intentional snub. However, there are times when this being nice backfires, often creating a really awkward situation, the type that makes you want to curl up in fetal position and hide.

Being nice often translates into being polite. Polite people hold doors for others when appropriate, say “Bless you” when people sneeze, and help out any time a friend is in need. Sometimes, to be nice, I will let others file out of the on-campus bus before me. Naturally because they are closer to the door. The other day though, a guy stopped abruptly in front of the door, seemingly confused as to why a girl had stepped back to let other people go first. This in turn created an awkward little pause in which he made an “after you” gesture and I was forced to exit the bus first. It was a small, miniscule awkward moment. Nonetheless, I felt awkward for the rest of the day, like it was a bad stench I couldn’t seem to wash off.

All of us are aware of what awkwardness feels like, and it is not just uncomfortable. Discomfort is a rock in your shoe, an itchy wool sweater, or being stuck on an over-crowded Redstone Express. Awkwardness is realizing you accidentally just revealed your life story to your academic advisor. It is ruthless and cruel. It has the ability to make you grit our teeth and knock your head against a wall in humiliation and despair. But alas, the simple act of random kindness tends to breed awkwardness, much to our dismay.

The passerby “Hi” is a very important element in a campus setting. There are class friends, close friends, and walk-by friends to whom you are obliged to say hello in passing, otherwise the relationship will gradually diminish. I personally have to deal with these “hellos” more than normal on account of being an identical twin. Not a day goes by in which I am not greeted by someone I don’t know, leaving me with the predicament of figuring out if it is someone I met once and don’t remember, someone my twin sister is friends with, or someone that is just unusually friendly.

If I don’t say hi, my sister will be seen as a jerk. If I do say hi, I am saying hi to a stranger who may realize later that I was in fact a look-alike of someone they actually do know, and I was creepy for saying hi to them. Most of the time, my analysis often has to take place in the span of 3 seconds, my default reaction is to give the greeter a puzzled look, thus ensuring the entire exchange to be uncomfortable and awkward.

Too often, people wave at us and we wave back, convinced that they are that girl who lived next door to us last year, or that guy whom we used to run into at the gym, or that girl from our TAP class. Despite your good intentions of being perceived as a nice, friendly person, you sometimes realize that not only was that girl not in your TAP class, she wasn’t even waving at you, she was waving at someone behind you.

In addition to what I like to call The Waving Incident, there is also the great Look-Alike Phenomenon. I am convinced that most students have a look-alike seemingly spawned from the inner depths of their long lost family tree. However, these look-alikes only reveal themselves to your friends and never you. We try to be nice and strike up conversation with people from class, only to find out that they are really our classmate’s non-related freaky-deaky twin. How convenient for us. At parties, people will swear you’re in their Spanish class even after you’ve told them you take French.

Occasionally, people will ask if you’re related to someone you’ve never met. Because I have a twin, my look-alikes have doubled. Not only do I get the, “Wait, were you in my bio lab?” (No), I also get the, “If it wasn’t you, it must have been your sister in my English class!” Wrong again. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve given that awkward, “Yes, I have a twin. Yes we’re identical,” speech. I know that these people are just trying to be friendly by asking me about it, but I can still feel just plain awkward about it.

We’re college students and we play nice. And we should. For now, the best advice I can offer is to keep being nice and don’t worry about the possible awkwardness. Even if you end up saying “Bless you” to a non-religious person, move over for someone in the hallway even if it leads to a quick box-step, or wave to a stranger by accident, take solace in the fact that they’re all kind gestures. Awkwardness is a small price to pay for friendly exchanges, even if it makes you want to curl up in a ball for a few hours.

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