Picture this: it’s a Monday morning at Hillsdale College and you are walking from Mossey Library where you’ve just printed a paper for your first class of the day. As you walk under the colonnade towards Lane Hall, you pass approximately 15 people. You smile at a handful, enthusiastically greet a couple, and awkwardly divert eye contact from the rest. Some of the people you diverted eye contact from are people you don’t recognize at all, but some of them are people you’ve had hour-long conversations with, some you may have once considered close friends. It seems that there is a “statute of limitations” of sorts for when you do and do not have to say hi to someone you know up the hill. This pointed avoidance seems to defy social norms and certainly goes against the advice that my mom gave me growing up.
As she raised me in the heart of South Carolina, my mom always stressed to my sister and me that you should always say hi to people you know, no matter how long it has been since you’ve last seen them. She explained that not only was it just the polite thing to do, but that it would likely brighten their day a little bit and ease the tension of not being sure if one of you should say hi. If I mentioned to her that I saw a friend from first grade at Target, but avoided saying hi to them, she’d be disappointed and encourage me to “have some guts” next time.
But at Hillsdale perhaps it is necessary to go against these social norms. Maybe you have to divert eye contact to survive. Even in the first week of freshman year alone, you likely meet about half of your class, and have extended conversations with many of them. You may never speak to these people again, but should you greet them in the dining hall? Is it your civic responsibility as a Hillsdale student to say hello to every person you know? I would argue probably not.
I asked junior Susannah Green what she would do if she was walking along the colonnade by the library and passed a person she hadn’t talked to in forever.
“I’d probably just throw them a soft smile or I would just pretend I don’t see them. I always do that with so many people.”
Senior Jessie Collins had a similar opinion.
“I hate standing in line with people in the cafeteria and feeling like I have to talk to them. I am here for business only.”
Senior Clayton DeJong disagreed and said that he says hi to people he has never spoken to just for fun. When I brought up the statue of limitations to junior Joal Burtka, he responded: “I can see your point, but it’s stupid. I’ve come up to people in the dining hall and hugged them because they looked like they were having a tough time.”
While it certainly never hurts to spread some good cheer every once in a while, that does not take away from the fact that we go to a school of about 1600 students and the average student has probably met at least a third of them. If we said hi to every person we’ve ever had an extended conversation with, it would be exhausting. Sometimes the best solution is to forget your mom’s advice and just divert eye contact.
According to Green, there is one exception to this rule, however.
“The time I never ignore people is when I am leading a tour as a student ambassador. I say hi to everyone because it makes me look really popular.”
Anna Katherine Daley is a senior studying rhetoric and public address.