The artfully planned activities involved in university orientation camps can be nauseating. I should know – I had to string a raw squid through my shirt. And then there was the pseudo-optional “heart-to-heart talk”.
If you have read “The Birthday Party” by Harold Pinter, the “H-T-H-T” session really felt a lot like the interrogation scene in Act 2. The only difference is that I was interrogated gently, and the interrogators were not in suits.
First point of annoyance: saying “H-T-H-T” instead of “heart-to-heart talk” makes it a lot easier for incessant chanting.
Second point of annoyance: sometimes you have these insensitive people around. They have absolutely no qualms disrupting the rhythm of the banter to inject their uninspiring opinions. Talk about self-awareness.
I think heart-to-heart talks are great. Yet to have people interrogate one another about their relationship status and history in the name of it seems really silly. Such a scenario should belong in the theatre of the absurd and not reality, even though sometimes it is difficult to make a clear distinction between art and life.
A “H-T-H-T” session trivializes the human experience by attempting to speak of love in shallow dialogues. At the same time, it undermines the value of a genuine, deep conversation by insisting that the experience is on par with the former in terms of its quality.
Such settings are also spaces set up for misinterpretation. It is especially so for people who have trouble discerning between a love story and a story about love. What is love, anyway? How does one even find analogues to human relationships?
It’s not all bad though, only not good enough. After all, you get to find out whether that cute guy or girl you have been eyeing is attached. (Also, ‘attached’ sounds really silly. It makes people sound like barnacles.)
It seems to have become a university orientation camp tradition. Surely we can do better. How about a mass love-poetry writing session instead? We can always attribute blame to the distortive medium should there be misinterpretation. It’s really convenient.
Sharing is good, really. The issue is that it has become over-sharing somehow, and some people have made a fetish out of it. Such talks also seem more like a way to forge group identity rather than encourage genuine empathy. They are unnecessary.
Then again, if you are fine with friendships bound only by shared experiences, then I am too, I guess.