11:46 AM
Lol, found this online. As a favor to a friend sophomore year, i agreed to write this piece for the school paper. Reading it again, i just have to say-- gosh it's so ditzy, hee hee.
Saying hello
They say that to lead a healthy life, especially as a college student, one must strike a balance between studying and socializing. Lucky for us because we get to have the best of both worlds. We all know that Ateneo is a fine academic institution, but are we aware that it is just as great as a social academy?
Ateneo is wonderful in a sense that it is big enough to give everyone space but small enough to be a community. Even though we would probably never get to see every student in school, our four or five years of stay on campus give us ample opportunity to meet as many people as we can remember.
Classes, orgs, parties and various activities introduce us to all types of Atenistas—from the pious to the superjock, to the rich brat to the honor student. But before we meet and deal with such people, we first have to start with the basics: saying hello.
Saying hello is an art, as well as a basic act for a social person. It is especially useful in college. To thrive in a school as populous as the Ateneo, socializing isn’t so much a luxury as it is a necessity. Greetings, usually accompanied by gestures such as a smile, wink, high-five or beso-beso, are tried-and-tested mechanisms used to start any conversation, introduce oneself, break the ice or acknowledge just about everyone we know. How and how often one greets another could spell the difference between a loner and Mr. Popularity. But sometimes the need to greet can become burdensome. Here are a few of those instances:
Scenario one: On newly made acquaintances—to greet or not to greet. While strolling along EDSA walk, you notice a classmate, whom you’ve spoken to once, walking toward your direction. This causes a mild attack of apprehension as you mentally debate whether or not to greet her. Rejection is the last thing you desire, so you decide to greet her only if she makes the first, even the slightest, move.
Unknown to you, your classmate is undergoing the same dilemma. As both of you approach closer, you and your classmate glare at each other for a split-second, each searching the other for a glint of acknowledgment. Finding none, both of you hastily look away. The next time your paths cross, both of you turn away and deliberately avoid each other like plagues. What could’ve been a nice relationship is cast away, all because of a minor incident of not saying hello.
The thread that connects two newly met acquaintances is a fine one. Failure to greet each other once, and you may never do so again. The fear of not being acknowledged is what makes people think twice when saying hello to an acquaintance. To solve this dilemma, a friend of mine applied the “eyebrows technique.” When greeting acquaintances, she meets their eyes and raises her eyebrows in acknowledgment. If the other person failed to respond, no problem, she just looks away with eyebrows still raised and pretend that she hasn’t seen anyone. Funny technique, but she swears that it works.
Scenario two: I-don’t-know-you-but-you-know-me. He just greeted you enthusiastically by name, while all you manage is a weak hello as you rummage your brain trying to recall when you’ve met him—if you’ve met him at all. In other words, he thinks you’re somewhat acquainted but you swear you’ve never seen him in your life. Before your already inflated ego gets any bigger, the reason why you can’t quite recall him is probably just because of poor memory (shame on you). Let me narrate an incident to illustrate the other instance. I had a newly-met acquaintance that I rarely see but who gives me a warm hello every time I do so. One time I saw him ambling along and decided to return his animated greetings. I smiled warmly and waved at him. Yet all he did was stare at me as if I had something growing on my face. Weird, I thought. Still, I continued greeting him whenever I see him, and he gradually began to return my hello’s, and sometimes even with an accompanying dimpled smile.
Then one day, the guy I thought I’ve been greeting all those times came up to me and said hi. I realized right then that I’ve been greeting the wrong person! In hindsight, what I’ve done seemed like a stupid mistake because although the two guys look alike, they are definitely not identical. I still see my friend’s look-alike around, although I don’t greet him anymore and instinctively turn away in embarrassment.
Scenario three: The myopic hello. On instances when you’re not sure if you should say hello to the person saying hi to you, just wave back—you have nothing to lose. Or do you? Before you lift your arm in response, make sure first that you are the recipient of the other person’s greetings.
A friend of mine saw that the person coming toward her was waving, so she waved back in response. Although she wasn’t sure if she knew the other person, she was ready to call out a greeting when suddenly, a person from behind her called out first. That was when she realized whom the person in front of her was waving at. In order not to lose face, my friend pretended to be waving at someone else. Nevertheless, the next time around she was more careful when greeting someone.
These are only some of the instances where you are not sure what to do when faced with such a dilemma. I’m sure each of us has an embarrassing story to tell. As a last piece of advice though, when in doubt, just say hello. A greeting is always a refreshing sight, and very few can resist a warm smile. If all these don’t evoke a respond from the other party, you can always look away and pretend to smile at no one in particular. People will think you’re just happy.
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