Social life at U Chicago? Any place for a non-nerd?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>Now before I get to my dilemma, let me clarify that I don't think there is anything wrong with being a nerd. I'm using that term here to refer to the kind of student so often found at great colleges like U Chicago - the kid who got 2400 on his SAT, knew at age 15 that he would major in Classics with minor in Philosophy, founded the Science Club at his high school and middle school, loves to read about string theory in his free time, finished his college applications in early September and spent the rest of the year constantly checking his top college's website for any possible announcements, etc. In short, in the context of this post, I'm using 'nerd' to refer to the brilliant, highly academic students, perhaps a little eccentric in a geeky way, that you find so often in Ivies and Ivy-equals. </p>

<p>If you, as a high school student (maybe even a non-senior?), are reading this board and this thread: you are very likely the kind of nerd to which I refer.</p>

<p>Now I have many nerdy friends, and some might say I'm a nerd myself. But in the vast category of nerds, there are some nerds that are... well... not very good at social interaction in the traditional sense. They stammer shyly, they try to woo you with talk of linear algebra, and when you offer them a pint of tequila, they take one demure sip and hand it back with muted disapproval. According to my favorite person at U Chicago, these kinds of nerds are rampant there. And she herself is as far from being a nerd as you can get at a place like that. She's smart, pretty low down the high school popularity ladder, and okay, maybe she had a 2400 and founded a science club or two herself, but she's not comfortable with these 18-year-old geniuses who can recite pi to the gazillionth digit but don't know what to say or where to look when you joke, "Man, I have so much hw; if I wanted to finish it before 2 AM, I'd have to snort some Adderall!" In fact, she hasn't been able to find her niche at U Chicago at ALL. She feels her dorm is pretty much run by the kind of uptight dorkwad that she, personally, has a hard time joking with and befriending. The few people she has met who aren't like that are deemed too annoyingly hipster ("the kind of crass-h*le who will wear an 'ironic' T-shirt and talk about how awesome he is at discovering unknown indie bands"). For the first time in her life, she is having a hard time finding friends. Much to her surprise (U Chicago was her top choice!), she is very, very unhappy.</p>

<p>Now... to the meat of the post. I'm visiting her soon, before the end of the school year. When she told me all about how awful all the U Chicagoans she's met are and how socially incompetent her hallmates seem, I listened to her complaints, but part of me thought, "Now, that can't be right. Even if these particular people are as terrible and humorless as she says, there HAVE to be some cool kids in such a large and wonderful school as U Chicago!" I think that part of her problem is that she just hasn't met enough people to find the friends who are right for her, and that she's antisocial enough that she won't go seeking MORE acquaintances unless I go with her or tell her where to look. So now that you've had a basic backstory, and maybe even gotten a sense for what kinds of people my friends and I are, help me. What do I do now? Where do I go to find kids who are funny, bright, but at the same time neither too hipster nor too clueless? What clubs and venues can I direct my friend to? When I visit my friend at her college, where should I take her to find cool-but-not-too-cool kids to meet together? What mental health resources can my friend take advantage of?</p>

<p>I realize that this problem is common to the undergraduate freshman year (I have a friend at Harvard who is facing similar issues), but given the extent of my U Chicago friend's despair, I think that her case is more urgent than most. Thank you for reading this far and for any help you might give. PS, if you decide to look at old posts from this account, something that I LOVE to do when reading people's posts, keep in mind that many of the posts are mine but a few of the posts are my best friend (unrelated to this situation).</p>

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<p>This post is way too long and huge, but if you aren’t the kind of person willing to read through this long huge post, you’re probably also not the kind of person I want to ask this question of… so… win-win situation! Sort of.</p>

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<p>I had two kids at Chicago. Neither can recite Pi past the fourth digit (if that). Both had (or have) really active social lives with lots of people they like.</p>

<p>The first was probably what your friend would characterize as an annoying hipster, although from my point of view it sounds like your friend (and you) are paying way too much attention to what people are wearing and far too little to what they are like. My hipster kid had a variety of friends, some of whom certainly appeared hipper-than-thou in terms of clothing (which, by the way, I think had a lot to do with gay boys putting some distance between themselves and their pasts) and others of whom were barely-hip-at-all social science majors or pre-meds. They were all really nice, kind, smart, intellectually curious, engaged in their lives and studies. They pretty much all liked to drink; I don’t think Adderall was a huge part of anyone’s life (but I could be wrong).</p>

<p>Kid #2 is completely un-hip, although he’s way too normal to cut it as a serious nerd, too. </p>

<p>Anyway, both kids met most of their friends through ECs, and to some extent classes, not through their dorms. Both realized that they weren’t going to be BFFs with anyone in their houses long before the end of their first quarter, but they didn’t mind because they could find friends elsewhere (and both retained at least a couple long-term friends whom they originally met because they were in the same house, too). The ECs included publications, tutoring in Woodlawn schools, UT, club sports, Scav Hunt, political groups, Doc Films. And of course, there’s always frats and bar night. Why doesn’t your friend try some of that?</p>

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<p>yikes… I’m kind of worried if Chicago is right for me now :confused: I really feel like your friend there. I feel like I’m a nerd but not the kind of nerd like one who can recite pi and link Marxism to …math. hrm</p>

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<p>Which dorm is she in?</p>

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<p>Damn. I only know that pi is 3.14 (no other decimal values) because my math teacher used to do pi day on march 14th (we got pie!)</p>

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<p>I visited a friend in Pierce. He’s a really smart kid who loves learning, and he’s also one of the coolest people I’ve ever met: he loves soccer (plays midnight, roots for Arsenal), plays guitar, is absolutely hilarious, listens to good (not typical hipster) music, does his fair share of partying, etc. I would not at all consider him a “nerd.” In fact, when I got there, he had just realized that he had left his belt in this one girl’s dorm two nights prior after some drunk partying. And he considers most of the frat guys and football players a bunch of tools.
His housemates were also pretty chill, funny guys. They know when to do their work, but have plenty of fun just hanging out in the house lounge. Their RA was also a really awesome guy. There are definitely the really fun types of people at UChicago. It’s not just a few thousand hipsters and major nerds.</p>

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<p>OP–I’m sorry that your friend is having some difficulty in finding a group or groups of friends. But I think you summed it up when you said that it was a common freshman experience. Chicago does try to help the process along–the house system is designed to provide students with an instant set of friends. Then, where you take it is up to you.</p>

<p>I really don’t think there are more socially awkward people at Chicago than there are at other academic schools. My daughter (who I think my would fit your criteria as nerdy but in an acceptable way and socially fine) thinks there are more awkward people at Yale.</p>

<p>I wish your friend some better success, but I don’t think that you or other applicants should think that her story is a reason to avoid the school.</p>

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<p>Sure, I’ll chime in a bit here.</p>

<p>First point: I have found a series of very close, satisfying relationships here. The relationships I’ve found here exceed my high school relationships in both quality and quantity.</p>

<p>Second point: None of them have been with people I knew first quarter first year. I will say hello to my house cohort if I see them on campus, but nothing more.</p>

<p>Third point: First-years stink, as a general rule. The people I know who are fourth-years now (very cool people who are dorks but wouldn’t let you know it unless you steered conversation in that general direction) who are awesome, confident, socially active all-stars were nervous as first-years. Will I party??!!! Will I get laid!!!??? Etc. So all first-years, in some way, are overcoming whatever happened to them in high school. I believe this is true for almost every student at every college, to some degree.</p>

<p>Fourth point: Yes, Chicago is pretty nerdy, but not, in my mind, the way your friend tells it. I don’t want to give myself away, but I think it’s fair to say that one of my favorite Maroons is a very preppy, pretty, homecoming queen type who has many pictures on her facebook profile of her doing silly things while holding a red cup in her hand. But she’s also REALLY, REALLY excited about school. And she’s one of my friends! (Note: “Homecoming queen” is among the last phrases I’d use to describe myself)</p>

<p>If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you may have gathered that I’m a nerd in the way that I get very excited by ideas and I like school a lot, but I’m definitely not somebody who puts a lot of emphasis on grades (as my high school and college transcript show.) If I go to somebody’s apartment, I am very likely to squee at their collection of books or board games, and I have been known to play some heavy-duty strategy games under the influence. But I’ve also been to a very healthy share of frat parties in my time and have been to some parties where I’ve seen things happen that are best not shared on the internet. So yes. I’m a nerd, but I don’t hold myself to that label 24/7 by any means.</p>

<p>So, what helped me?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I fell into a hybridized social network through my extracurriculars. I would say of the 20-30 people I see and hang out with most often all know each other, even if I know person X from Y activity and person A from B activity, it is highly likely that person X and A know each other from C. So at parties and such, I find myself introducing people who already know of each other. I like that I can go to somebody’s apartment and see some familiar faces, even if they are not my best friends ever.</p></li>
<li><p>I actually went to some of the things I got invited to on facebook.</p></li>
<li><p>I was patient. One forgets how much freshman year of college is very much like moving to a new town and starting a new school… because it is! Soon enough the categories of “nerd,” “hipster,” “prom queen,” etc. will break down. If I categorized the world by sorting out people whom I felt didn’t share anything in common with me based on the way they appeared, I’d have no friends.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I’m sorry for any confusion called by the slightly tongue in cheek tone of my first post. Of course not every boy who wears ‘an ironic t-shirt’ and likes to boast about how he knows all the ‘hottest unknown indie bands’ is going to be a person who my friend and I dislike. I was using these particular markers as cultural shorthand, much as I used a reference to the ability to recite pi to the gazillionth digit but no ability to have conversation as a reference to the kind of smart kid who’s very focused on things like math but doesn’t really know how to deal with social situations. It seems that most people are picking up on the latter “type” - the whiz kid who has a hard time talking to people - but not on the first “type.” This may be a generational thing, as the “hipster” type I refer to is a relatively recent cultural phenomenon, so parents and older alums may not recognize that particular cultural reference.</p>

<p>I am still reading through all your posts, so this is not a reply to everyone in the thread, but I did want to clarify really quickly the “type” I meant when I referenced the hipster. Hipster, here: pretentious, insufferable, cooler than thou. The kinds of hipsters I refer to (ie, the kinds my friend felt uncomfortable with… again, not all “hipsters” are bad people, just as not all “nerds” are socially incompetent homework machines) often like to try and use their obscure knowledge to show themselves to be “more hip” or more “culturally with-it” than you are. There is a specific kind of young person, generally between 18 and 25, who takes great pride in “knowing” the “underground music scene” - but only if the “underground music scene” is sufficiently underground that YOU, the person he is talking to, does not know about it yourself. This will allow the pretentious young person to believe that he is superior to you, at least in matters of musical taste, because you are not as informed as he is when it comes to what he considers current musical currents. </p>

<p>As you can see, this kind of person isn’t tied to APPEARANCE so much as ATTITUDE. In the first post, I referenced APPEARANCE because these kinds of hipsters often do signal certain of their interests and proclivities through their appearance, for example “ironically” wearing a child’s sweater with unicorns on it (male). This isn’t about sexuality or gender, isn’t even necessarily about fashion; in this case, the sweater is just there to signal “irony,” to signal that the wearer is so culturally superior that not only does he know that this unicorn sweater is the kind of thing you (as this kind of “hipster”) would turn your nose up at if you saw someone wearing it in earnest, but also he is cool enough - to return to outdated terms, “hip” enough - to wear it himself in a manner that, in his eyes, somehow transcends the inherent lack of cool of the sweater not through any virtue of styling or fashion but merely BECAUSE he is culturally superior and recognizes the sweater’s lameness. So as you see, in some cases, clothing becomes not a marker of APPEARANCE or even PERSONAL STYLE vis a vis texture/pattern/color/cut, but instead indicative of the hipster’s attitude towards what he thinks of as being uncool. I’m sure many of my peers have met people like this before, particularly those of us who live in upper- to middle-class urban areas. </p>

<p>The moniker “hipster” itself is a subtle reference as to the “type” I described above. The hipster thinks himself so culturally aware and so up-to-date with all the latest manifestations of coolness that he believes (“knows”) that the out-dated term “hip” is now uncool. However, he also thinks himself so enlightened that by dint of being able to recognize this distinction (unlike his middle-aged father, who is just lame), he is able to call himself a “hipster” with a suitable amount of irony. For some of us, it can be exhausting interacting with such people on a frequent basis. </p>

<p>Sorry for all the rampant quotation marks in this post, but I wanted to make a distinction between my terms and the terms placed into the mouths of my hypothetical hipsters (“underground music scene,” etc).</p>

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<p>Whew! That ended up being a long post again, and I’m sorry. One more piece of clarification.</p>

<p>If you do not want to read a lot of text (and I understand!), I have bolded the important points for you. The rest is just explanation and support.</p>

<p>“Soon enough the categories of “nerd,” “hipster,” “prom queen,” etc. will break down. If I categorized the world by sorting out people whom I felt didn’t share anything in common with me based on the way they appeared, I’d have no friends.” (unalove)</p>

<p>In short, yes, I agree with your points. HOWEVER, there is this thing we call language with which we must communicate. My take on the usage of language is that when I write this post and ask you guys for help with my dilemma, **I need to communicate to you what I mean. When I tell you the backstory, I have to use terms that YOU will understand. ** So okay, maybe I didn’t have to use “nerd,” because as you said, these categories ultimately aren’t much use when it comes to talking about individuals. But if I used the first post to detail every single individual interaction my friend had at U Chicago that made her feel this way, the post would be thrice its current length, and it’s none too short already! It is much more efficient for me to use cultural shorthand in this context. If I said someone was a “prom queen” type, you personally may disagree with such blatant stereotyping. But even as you disagreed, you would still understand the intended meaning. And so that term, for all its faults, would still be useful.</p>

<ol>
<li>In the post, I say that some nerds in particular - NOT ALL NERDS! NOT MOST NERDS! just SOME nerds - are “not very good at social interaction.” I don’t think there is anything wrong with this observation. I’m not saying, “Every nerd ever is a negative stereotype.” I am simply saying that my friend does not like people who cannot socially interact with her well. Yes, some of this may be her own problem. Yes, people who are not good at social interaction are still worthwhile individuals. That doesn’t change anything. My friend is unhappy at U Chicago because the only people she has met so far either are “hipsters” (see previous post) or are socially incompetent in her eyes (which probably means that these kids are pretty darn socially incompetent, because she’s no “prom queen” herself). She wants to meet people who are NOT “hipsters” and who are NOT socially incompetent. And THAT is what I want your help with. That’s all I am asking for.</li>
</ol>

<p>I understand that some of this confusion is my fault for not being sufficiently clear in my first post, and I take full responsibility for that. I also understand now that humor doesn’t relay well over the internet, which is why some of my cultural in-jokes (for example, the ironic t-shirts) were taken at face value by some, who misinterpreted that offhand remark as a comment on inherent value in appearance. And again, I take responsibility for that, and I’m sorry for that confusion as well. But I hope now that after these two extended posts, I have CLARIFIED the situation, and those of you who balked at giving help the first time because of our misunderstandings will be able to aid me now.</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

<p>Annette</p>

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<p>Ok. At long last, my replies to your wonderful suggestions. Again, I’m sorry that my clarifications ran so long. But I wanted to be very sure that I had cleared up this sort of confusion, so that you all could best help my friend with her dilemma. I really am very worried for her. I sometimes come off as flippant, but I seriously believe that my friend is actually undergoing a mental health crisis. She is very depressed. Part of this is certainly linked to the fact that she currently has no good friends at U Chicago because she can’t “find them” - the only part that I can actually help with, when I visit her later this term. That’s why I created this thread asking for help, and that’s why my last question in the first post asked for mental health services at U Chicago my friend could take advantage of… I would still appreciate guidance there too, by the way!</p>

<p>So to sum it up, so far you guys are saying:</p>

<p>ECs, ex literary publications, tutoring, political groups, films - JHS, unalove
Frats/bar night - JHS
classes - JHS (“to some extent”)
go to things you’ve been invited to on facebook - unalove
be patient - unalove</p>

<p>“Dude, there are actually cool people at U Chicago too, not just socially incompetent nerds and hipster types.” - pretty much everyone!</p>

<p>Did not find best friends @ U Chicago “first quarter first year;” “first years stink” - unalove (very true! I remember having this experience way back in high school!)</p>

<p>Ok. As you can tell, I obviously read all your posts and even took notes (did I mention that I’m a nerd? ;)). And I think that all your advice is sound. Thank you very much for it! </p>

<p>I am going to relay all your awesome advice to my poor friend. I would also love it if I could have some very SPECIFIC advice that she could act on instantly. As mentioned, she is kinda depressed (which, yes, may have colored her judgment of her housemates). But for now, that’s just something that we’re going to have to work around in finding solutions to this dilemma. So all this is excellent advice, but a depressed person might listen and think, “Ok, so this sounds like a good plan, but it’s so much! Where can I even start? No, better to continue lying in bed and not seeking help or treatment.” I’ve certainly had that feeling before!</p>

<p>So if anyone can give me very SPECIFIC action steps, that would be beyond appreciated. Not, you know, “Stand up. Put on socks. Go out of doors. Walk down the street.” But something like, “1. You may want to investigate the discus throwing club. 2. You can look on XXX to find the club leader’s names and meeting times and locations. (May not be necessary if U Chicago has a very organized student organization page - as mentioned, I do not go to this school, so I have no idea.) 3. You may want to bring your own discus and oil to your first meeting.” Something like that. Very simple, very clear, almost excessively hand-holdingly helpful. Remember, we’re dealing with a depressed individual here, so baby steps!</p>

<p>Again, thank you all so much for responding to my call of distress!</p>

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<p>I tried to delete/edit another post, but the time had expired. (Obviously I’m not very used to CC yet. Sorry for the all-too-gentle learning curve.) So instead, a new post:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Dear Unalove, you have been very helpful. There is a post of mine about two posts above this one that sounds like it is directed at you, because it quotes you. No, it is not an attack on you. I used your quote as a springboard to tackle another issue addressed to any newcomers to this thread. So don’t feel like I am attacking you there, because I am not.</p></li>
<li><p>Going back to my friend and her issues finding cool people… Yes, some of this may be her own problem. Yes, she should mature and learn how to deal with many different kinds of people. Yes, people who are not good at social interaction are still worthwhile individuals. HOWEVER, although I may want her to mature, she is already DEPRESSED RIGHT NOW, so I need to deal with this immediate situation first. I hope that one day she is as clear-sighted as you lovely people are, but RIGHT NOW I hope to find her medical support AND a peer support system at U Chicago, before it is too late and she does something drastic like withdraw from the college (which again was her top choice).</p></li>
</ol>

<p>@ zephyra: I don’t know, I can ask next time I get ahold of her though.</p>

<p>@ Seashore: “I don’t think that you or other applicants should think that her story is a reason to avoid the school.” I agree with you 100%. I really do think that a lot of this situation is influenced by her current mood. If she weren’t depressed, I’m sure that her attitude towards her housemates et al would be more positive. </p>

<p>“My daughter […] thinks there are more awkward people at Yale.” That may be very true!! Full disclosure, I’m actually a Yalie. And personally, I think that Yalies are great. I don’t think they’re too awkward at all. So maybe that just means that I have a higher tolerance for awkwardness than your daughter and my friend. Helps that I am very awkward myself!</p>

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<p>If the underlying issue is that your friend is depressed, suggest as gently (if you feel that she is likely to be resistant) as you can that she head to the counseling center and get some help. I suspect that until and unless her depression is addressed, no amount of ECs are going to help. That said, once she begins to address the emotional issues, perhaps your friend can attempt to target extra-curricular activities that really speak to her interests or what she might like her interests to be! The list of RSO’s is found on the U of C website. Go to the “Student” tab, click on RSO’s, then click on Student Organizations, Search RSO database and select from the pull down list for areas of interest. For instance, if she’s interested in Community Service, search that and she will find a list of all the community service organizations. If she clicks on, say APO, she will get a description of the community service fraternity (co-ed) and contact information. The same goes for club and intramural sports. The links for those are found under the “Athletics” tab. Having had 2 kids at the University I can say that there are plenty of opportunities for all interests, and there are as many kinds of students as there are students. Just encourage her to reach out and meet people with similar interests. It can take time, especially if she feels that her options are so limited. Good luck.</p>

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<p>florilegium: Listen to runnersmom. I have only three things to add. </p>

<p>(1) It may be easier for your friend to talk to her Resident Head rather than call counseling herself. She should do that as soon as she can; he or she will know how to make things happen. </p>

<p>(2) You seem very engaged in this. That’s really commendable – you are a good friend – but if your friend is really having some sort of mental health crisis, what you can do is very, very limited – whether from a distance, or on a visit, or even if you move into her dorm room and brush her teeth for her. Get her to talk to some adults and to go to the counseling center, get her to talk to her parents about this, and go live your life. That’s another lesson that I learned the hard way, through experience. </p>

<p>(3) Before you push the panic button completely, however, think for a moment whether the proper DSM classification for your friend’s condition is “Freshman Winter”. As unalove suggested, it can really suck. I was thinking last night – I had the most wonderful undergraduate experience imaginable, in my mind everything was perfect, but if I focus on late January, freshman year, I was (a) tired of my roommates, (b) disappointed with what I had been learning, (c) hating the one EC I was involved in, (d) getting drunk daily, (e) feeling like I didn’t really know anyone I had met since school began, and (f) really down on myself for frequently slipping back into a relationship I had supposedly ended more than a year before. I was just beginning to get a glimmer of the academic passion that dominated my college career, and I had met but barely formed a relationship with three or four of my closest college friends. By March, things were a lot better; by the following September they were a LOT better, and I began to forget that the bad 5-7 weeks had ever happened.</p>

<p>This shouldn’t deter your friend from talking to a counselor, but maybe it should give her hope that a lot of people go through something like this right about now, and it’s barely a speedbump on their roads.</p>

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<p>I went through periods both in college and graduate school when I was miserable and felt like I had no friends. For me the solution was to get busy - join other activities, do more school work, make sure I spent a minimal time alone in my room feeling sorry for myself. </p>

<p>That said, I agree that it would be good to encourage her to talk to someone there - counseling, resident head whoever. This may just be a situational depression, but it could also be more serious.</p>

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<p>What is the cause and effect: Is the fact that Chicago kids are by and large “nerdy” that is causing your friend to be depressed or is that she is depressed (for what ever reason) and hence finds her classmates “nerdy and unappealing”. In a large population (over 1500 other persons in that year, and possibly classmates in other graduating years), I am sure that there are at least a few people who share the same interests or there is someone she can relate to. Could it be possible that her depression is causing her to be negative and turn off everyone else around her and hence she is not being able to relate to anyone? </p>

<p>I am not sure that the matter is not as crystal clear as being made i.e. Chicago is full nerdy kids and hence she is not able to make friends as they appear to live in a different planet. I am going to guess that you friend needs professional help (could be psychological or it could even be psychiatric). I think expecting people in CC to be able to give specific advice (steps 1, step 2…) may not be practical. She needs to use the counseling resources available, possibly talk to a Doctor who might be able to prescribe medicines for depression or refer her to psychiatrist if needed. I would suggest that trained professional is the best bet.</p>

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<p>First, I have to laugh. While “hipsters” don’t bug me, I know I’d feel alienated at the outset if I went to a school that emphasized looking good along with everything else. And like OP, I might be inclined to rant on and on about “Daddy’s girls” and such. But I would eventually overcome my fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar. </p>

<p>I know a lot of “hipsters” at Chicago in style, dress, post-ironicness, tastes etc., but I’ve only encountered one student whom I can think of as unpleasant in the “holier than thou” sense, and this kid was not hipster by textbook definition. We had a relatively animated disagreement recently in which he essentially agreed with me in spirit but made a big deal of attempting to undermine me to show off his superior intelligence. This disagreement caught me in a bad way, but I realized later that he was talking about something he’s crazy passionate about, and I think he let his emotions take ahold of him. </p>

<p>Anyway, my point… these labels say a lot more about us than they do about the people we pretend to describe. And I’m guilty,of this, too: I’m not volunteering to room with Ms. Shopping Bags from Gucci anytime soon.</p>

<p>I am not going to point out specific social networks, but I will tell you and your friend that they exist. If we assume that people like people who are like each other, your friend is going to have a bang-up time joining activities that mesh with her interests, even if it’s hanging out with a group of kids from class to work on a problem set.</p>

<p>The Resident Head is a great possible source, as is an RA, as is attending a house event, just to get out a bit. But the best thing your friend can actually do is read the message boards in Cobb and go from there.</p>

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<p>

lol don’t lump all of us who wear Gucci, Prada, and Dolce and Gabbana together into some lame hipster category. it’s possible to look good and be down-to-earth at the same time; they aren’t always mutually exclusive, despite what intuition may dictate lol</p>

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<p>I reread my posts and was really struck by how harried, unhinged, and panicked I was! Now that my mind is clearer, I’m going to step down from the soapbox, indicate my gratitude, and close this thread. I agree with those of you who point out that freshman winter can be a difficult time for many (as you know from reading previous posts). And I also agree with those of you who point out that my friend’s negative reactions may be indicative of her depression more than anything else (as you know from reading previous posts). And finally, I agree that at this point, even IF this is a full-blown mental health issue, all I can do is let her know I care about her, provide some food for thought such as the suggestions in this thread, encourage her to seek counseling services, and keep a respectful distance. And that’s exactly what I’m doing now. So thank you all for giving my absent friend and me support in this latest rocky episode of her life.</p>

<p>But because I can’t ever resist an interesting discussion ;), one last post @ Unalove: you have good points, but I think there is a distinction between the stereotype (cultural construct) and the people to whom it may refer (flesh and blood). Referencing a stereotype - that is, a set of common associations in the popular imagination - is not inherently harmful. The problems come when you apply said stereotype as a blind generality. “Everyone who loves Gucci is shallow” is bad. “Some people who love Gucci are shallow?” Not so much. It’s all in the context. Clearly, I sometimes use stereotypes myself - with lots of disclaimers. See 1st post: I may have been sloppy with “hipster” (I didn’t realize that people would have such varied interpretations; in my community the term refers exclusively to certain personality traits and not appearance/behavior), but with “nerd,” I strongly stressed that the stereotype is NOT applicable to every smart, geeky kid who might be labeled as such by others. After such clarification, I see no problem with saying something like “I don’t usually end up being good friends with people-who-fully-reject-the-importance-of-social-interaction, no-matter-how-intellectually-brilliant-they-are” (an expanded version of my shorthand “nerd” in the context of this thread). Nobody’s patronizing me for saying, “I don’t usually end up being good friends with people who are homophobic.” Both delineate personal value systems (“the value of intellect vastly outweighs that of social competence,” “gay people are unacceptable because of their sexuality”) that I don’t agree with myself and that I don’t usually cotton to in others. I’m not judging INHERENT traits or even the individual “nerd”/“homophobe,” but instead voicing my take on specific acquired beliefs. A whiz kid with an EQ of 0 & Aspergers, or someone who hates gays only because of delusional paranoia, would gain my sympathy even if I still probably wouldn’t end up being close to them myself. And let’s face it, everyone makes thousands of these judgments every single day. You’re not going to hang around with a person you don’t find interesting/awesome for years until you finally prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you’re never going to be BFF. The thing is that many people sugarcoat this, saying at most that “Martin and I just didn’t click” (ambiguous, open-ended) as opposed to “I didn’t like Martin because I felt he looked down on my skin color” (concrete reason).</p>

<p>If you want, please ignore the specific example I’m giving (“nerd” in this thread), and just focus on the abstract argument. I’m interested in continuing this discussion, as the topic of labels/stereotypes is one I have mulled upon at length without anyone to debate it with. I’m open to being persuaded if you provide a solid enough argument. If you’re interested in having a friendly intellectual back/forth about this topic as well, please feel free to PM me. Thank you. Annette</p>