Patrick Leigh-Pemberton: Reasons why no one will be friends with me

Due to a complete disinterest in my own wellbeing, a desire to be seen as slightly adventurous and an organisational ability that makes “omnishambles” look like a weak word, I spent the first couple of weeks of this term without an actual home to call my own. Because of this, when I arrived for the beginning of term after a long and exhausting drive, I found myself walking up the street holding an overnight bag and a sleeping bag, looking for a friend who might lend me a floor for the night before I sorted myself out. At this point an incredibly earnest, polite, and sober American “freshman” approached me, asking if I needed any help, or if I knew what Halls I was in. Well, I would like to say that I corrected his mistake with a kind and appreciative comment, but I am afraid to say that after a long drive with nothing to keep me going but Radio 4, service station coffee and Italian cigarettes (the last of that summer holiday haul), kind and appreciative wasn’t really within my grasp. I told him curtly that I was fine, and was in fact a 4^th year. I didn’t intend to sound cross, and I most certainly didn’t want to be mean, but I think that I was accidentally very hurtful to this poor man. This upsets me to look back upon, as it was a very ungracious way to engage with someone. But what really upsets me is the idea that he might think I was like that, not because I was tired and grumpy, but because I was in 4^th year, and disgusted at his impetuosity at engaging me in conversation.

One of the things that I have always liked about St Andrews is that there is no sense of a year-based hierarchy. The town is too small for people to run in fear of each other; the academic family system facilitates friendships between all ages, and interest groups transcend the years. It has been, for me, a place where the question “what year are you in?” is just a conversation starter, not an inquiry of status. And yet I am beginning to notice that in my 4^th year this has begun to change. Maybe it is just the idea that most people have of 4^th year being so much more work, which is not the case (bar a dissertation, it is just the same as 3^rd year for me – same credits, similar modules), but there seems to be a wariness of making friends with a 4^th year.  And the other day it sort of struck me that it wasn’t a wariness based around any ideas of fear or respect (oh ego, look what a mess you got me into, you silly). Rather, the transient nature of a 4^th year’s existence in St Andrews, which grows increasingly evanescent as the time passes, makes any effort at friendship with one a waste.

This feeling has to stop. Mostly because the friends that I have made already invariably have loads of works when I am free, and are free when I have loads of work. So if I want to enjoy myself in downtime, the best way is to meet the intelligent interesting youth that live in this town. And it is no fun if they don’t want to be friends with me anymore.