Each one remained an anonymous individual, safe and insular. Was this a way out of alienation and into joy as the pink sheet promised? On the contrary, it was self-defense and nothing more. There was no life at the Adams House Blizzard Mixer. There was only survival.
THE MIXER reminded me of Harvard-Radcliffe relations in general. There was that same insidious lack of communication that is so characteristic of university life here. The fact that I was one of three (that I counted) Cliffies there, that being a Cliffie was a strike against me, that I thought Adams House wanted to meet me, and that nobody knew that--a real communications breakdown of the first order.
Why can't we simply admit this fact? We want to meet you, Harvard, and you want to meet us -- at least those of you who aren't wrongly afraid of us do. Why can't we get together? It's such a tragedy. We have so much to give to each other, to share with each other, and to learn from each other. We want to know each other as people first, not as dates or as members of a "relationship," but as men and women with something to say to each other.
But it's so hard to meet people naturally around here. We all know that. You can't meet anyone in a large lecture course. You're too busy taking notes, and then you have to dash from a section in Holyoke Center to a class in the Fogg. And how many people get into the Loeb crowd or on the Yearbook or the CRIMSON? Extracurricular activities--the few that there are--are out. And what else is there? Mixers? Ha. Dorm parties? You need a date, which means you already know someone. Nobody gets invited as a single. There are no open dorm parties at Harvard. What else is there? Nothing.
WHAT THIS PLACE needs so desperately is a student union. Not a Hilles penthouse or the Lehman Hall that was, but a real place where we can go and have something to eat, music to listen to, and people to meet informally, without any pressure. Where people will accept you as someone who didn't feel like studying that night or talking to the same dorm people, but as someone who wanted to meet some new people.
This is what co-educational living is all about, and if we can't have that for awhile, then we should have a substitute and soon. Aren't we tired of all or nothing relationships? Aren't we limited by knowing only a few people casually and even fewer well? Isn't it about time we did something to make our four, brief, crucial years here count for something more than a few A's and B's? Isn't the time long, long overdue to put an end to our self-imposed loneliness?
Yes, but how many of us are capable of that? All of us are, but too few realize it. How many of us can drop our defenses, stop protecting our slick Harvard exteriors, and start treating each other as warms, sensitive human beings? How many of us are able to celebrate a festival of life at this point? The concert said a few. The mixer said not many. The fact is that most of us are psychologically incapacitated. And this may be the real tragedy after all.