On the large campus that is Ohio University, you can never possibly get to know everyone who goes to school here. But there is a solution to this problem that everyone partakes in, whether consciously or subconsciously, whether we would like to admit to it or not. That solution is The Nickname.
We all have them. Those kids we see walking around campus that, for some reason, catch our eye and we feel the need to voyeuristically keep tabs on them. We take a guilty pleasure in naming them, stripping them of all but a definition based on a presupposition.
It is only my third quarter here, but I have managed to surround myself with quite the little family of Nicknames.
There is a girl I have dubbed Paulet, who I see at least two or three times a day. She eats at my dining hall and is in all of the same clubs as me. When we see each other, we flash a brief look of hey
you're the same person as me knock it off.
I have never approached her solely because I am afraid if our worlds collide, it could be the end for us all. I like to think of her as my silent sworn enemy.
There is a kid named Chunk I appropriately named after Jeff Cohen's character in the cult classic The Goonies. He has the same haircut as him and I'm sure if you asked him, he would tell you his favorite type of pizza is Dominos. I've come close to asking him several times as to the whereabouts of Sloth.
There are the Hoodie Boys, two guys who used to sit in front of me in psychology who consistently wore the same hooded sweatshirts. I wonder if they have a closet full of them - Doug Funnie style - and if they color coordinate.
Other self-explanatory ones include Pretty Girl Who Walks Too Fast, Unicycle Man, and Addicted to iPod Boy.
My friends have some even more creative nicknames than mine like 18-Rows-Down Boy, Giraffe Girl, or Beautiful Muscle Boy.
I don't think that any of us would ever approach our Paulets, or our Chunks, and if we did, what would we tell them, our secret?
Well, actually, I did. This column was originally intended as a last-quarter Between the Lines and since then an interesting development has occurred.
Aided by the help of my friend and enemy Keystone Light, I approached Paulet at a party with the line, Hey. You're my enemy. What resulted was a lengthy discourse into my classification of her. She responded, somewhat afraid, that her real name was Julia and that she had no idea who I was. But we had enough in common, quite a lot actually, to continue talking. Now I say hi to her on the streets and it's actually quite the sickeningly happy ending.
What's to learn from this is that the people that catch our eye around campus are the ones that we find interesting. If one of the purposes of meeting a college student is to make lasting friendships and bonds with other people, then it should at least be with people who are interesting to us.
This experience with Paulet makes we want to go out and find out about the others.
Maybe Chunk secretly has the same obscure taste in movies as me. Maybe Pretty Girl Who Walks Too Fast is the future love of my life (and all I have to do is pick up the pace). Maybe Unicycle Man is a huge fan of my articles.
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Paul Kita
