Who Needs Non-Work, Work Related Gatherings
A monumental moment in a primary schooling friendship is when a friend invites you to their house. The same is true for high school, and in college, itâs crying in front of another person. Post-grad, it is inviting someone to your apartment. At least, thatâs what I think right now.
The only people who have been in my apartment are my Grandma and my mom. I would invite people over, but I never really finished unpacking or building the IKEA shelf or dining chairs. Why build 4 chairs when you really only need two?
While getting closer to my fellow department interns, we kept talking about getting together and watching a movie. Iâm very into making specific plans. Talking about making plans is very different than making plans. I need: date, time, location (including address), estimated hangout length, guesstimate of activities, and background checks. Talking about making plans is a waste of my time. I need something in my calendar or you basically donât exist to me.
I also donât like orchestrating plans that will take place at someone elseâs home. That seems intrusive. I will only do that for close friends who ask me to. I hosted a game night at a close friendâs place over the summer, and aside from the flooding storm happening outside, it was nice. If someone hosts an event at their place and I donât feel like I have enough info to satisfy my programming hunger, I just ask a lot of questions. If you donât know and you want to know, ask.
I was glad that one of the other interns (also a former RA) took the lead, and opened her apartment to us. She asked for movie suggestions and picked up the ones from a rental shop (is this hipster now?) that were available. After group texting for several days*, the time had arrived for our event.
One of the girls attending asked me to give her a ride. No problem with me. Was it out of my way? Yes, but only by about 15 minutes. I wasnât doing a lot that day, and I love driving around in my car. It gave me an excuse to check out another side of the local university. And I LOVE sharing my car playlists with people! I picked her up outside her dorm and we drove out of the city.
I LOVE my car (âmy President is black and my Prius is blueâ - Tina Fey, âReal Estateâ from Childish Gambinoâs Royalty mixtape) but I HATE my GPS. I would rather use Google Maps. However, it is easier to look at my screen than at my phone, so I use my GPS. It just doesnât tell me what I want to know when I want to know it. I always end up missing turns. GPS! If I need to exit a parkway, DONâT just say âkeep rightâ. THATâS NOT HELPFUL!
Anyways, we turned too soon and ended up in a different apartment complex. How did we find this out? We went to the correct apartment number, and there was a black family living there. This was not a post-grad apartment. We went back to the car and drove to the apartment complex next door.
Her roommate had baked cookies. I LOVE chocolate chip cookies, so this was already heaven. While my apartment is super bare, herâs was well decorated and fancy. Like, Pinterest-fancy. That still wasnât super descriptive. I donât decorate for a reason.
We watched Everybody Wants Some!! From time to time, I willingly indulge in a âbro-filmâ. It helps that I love baseball, so this was a good pick. I also had read headlines about this film being âaccidently gayâ and these articles have a point. Watching movies with âfriendsâ (or other people) has always been odd to me. I definitely understand having a community. I left Moonlight wanting to talk to someone else about the film, and thankfully, one of my other friends had already seen it. I still had to drive home, alone, with all of my thoughts. At the same time, viewing a film is still a little solitary. You may hear or see the reactions of others, but you are still sitting there, mostly in silence. I donât mind seeing films alone for this reason. There is still merit in seeing films with others too.
We talked about the film briefly and then talked about the upcoming festival. Then, the other intern and I left. It only ended up being 3 of us. My GPS is not very helpful in the dark when I have more trouble seeing streets and street signs.
It was a nice evening. It was nice to hangout with interns outside of work, but still in the name of work.
Next week on âAlex, Who Needs Friendsâ: Who Needs the Festival!