A Student for One Year *

I have started the embarrassingly addictive habit of fiercely looking up people's profiles on myspace. I went to a college for one year and then I transferred. It was about a thousand years ago now. I looked up all of the people from that class who I would have graduated with had I stayed.

I recognized only a handful of people really. I sifted through their best photos and read about their favorite movies and music. I followed links from one friend to another. I have never been so confused my humanity as I was at the time that I was at this school. I didnt like anyone but I didnt know why. I could not figure any one out and it made me amazingly sad.

But now as I look through their pages and pictures of themselves holding glasses of wine from their parents cellars and laughing, skiing, riding horses, living in exotic places, looking romantically tattered or tan, enriched with mind-opening experiences, I just have to wonder, had I been more able to go with the flow and learn from new types of people at the time, would I now be part of this community?

It seems to me that these people have an unbreakable network of friends from college and I envy that. I only keep in touch with a few choice college friends, but that’s it. We are hardly a group. Maybe its myspace making everyone seem more connected than they really are. Either way, I am feeling a hearty helping of out-of-the-loopness and what-could-have-beens today.

* I thought of another name for this post after I published it but I didnt want to disorient people by changing the name. So I will just tell you, I wanted to call it “theirspace.”