India Doyle: DON’T be boring

Procrastination during essay writing led me to, via facebook – yes that’s come back too – read an article on ‘people you should hate more than the kk’. Free advertising, why the hell not? Whilst faultlessly written in prose dripping with venom and sarcasm, I couldn’t help but think: are we not done with this pointless hatin’ on each other?

I, as much as the next person, can be criticised for snide remarks about various events in St Andrews, but reading this article made me feel utterly depressed at the fact that we seem to have become stuck in some inescapable, unintelligent shit commentary about stereotypes in St Andrews. Obviously there are different groups of people in St Andrews and my aim is not to encourage everyone to love each other; there will be people in this university who grate on you. Welcome to life. I just think it’s incredibly destructive to spend four years of one’s life bitching about people that you probably don’t know. In fact, criticising people you have never engaged with is an obvious sign of insecurity, and you would be much better off going to see a councillor than writing or indeed articulating in any form, gratuitous, unintelligent, uninformed, crap.

I don’t want to spend 500 words attacking the anonymous author of said text, but the article is illustrative of a wider problem that is poisoning our small town. This university seems to be gripped by a fear of engaging with people we don’t know. It comes in many forms, from the way in which everyone avoids each other on the street; to the impossibility of being chatted up by a handsome stranger on a night out. In the outside world, when you are introduced to someone, that’s it, you have formed a connection; here we seem to require twenty introductions before you finally admit ‘yeah we’ve met before’, then you get the thumbs up on Market Street, as opposed to ‘head down, phone out’.

All I’m saying really is, what’s there to be scared of? There are 7,000 young people here and we pretty much dominate the town.  There should be a fantastic atmosphere: we will never have this chance to socialise with 7,000 people from all walks of life, with a ridiculously diverse set of interests and talents, ever again.

Sure, it’s a lot easier to sit with your friends and make assumptions about people on the other side of the library, but we’re an intelligent and interesting bunch (probably) and – I’m ever the optimist – most people have something semi-redeemable about them. Let’s quit hatin’ and start congratulatin’. Or failing that, let’s at least all try to co-exist without reverting to over-used stereotype.

Cool guys, I’m off to stand outside the library offering free hugs. It’s going to be a great day.