Thursday, September 27, 2007

I'm not your buddy.

"Hey, buddy." Smile in passing. Keep walking. Ummm... hi?

There's a trend on campus, or rather, just about everywhere, to call me "buddy." I don't have a problem with my friends calling me "buddy." I accept it as a term of endearment, and I allow certain people to get away with calling me that. But for the rest of the world, I have a question for you:

Do you just not know my name?

"Heyy, buddy!" As if to say, "I think you're important, too! See? I'm talking to you!"

Why is it that only certain people exude this "vibe" that almost seems degrading? Oh, surely, they only mean to be uplifting and friendly, and maybe it's not their fault that they really think they're being uplifting. I mean... really think it. As if my day relied on it.

It seems that I get this certain vibe more from those certain students who consider themselves in high-ranking positions. Either they work for Student Life, or for Admissions, or are just in general full of themselves in some social service club leadership role. The mentality that radiates from these individuals is more along the lines of "Hello, young student on whom my guidance may be blessed," rather than "Hey, friend!" Which one would think to be the typical meaning behind the term, "buddy." If you work for Student Life, that's wonderful, but don't look at me like one of those students that you are "helping" with your job, as if I'm somewhat lower than you. Am I one of the hoi polloi, a dullard peasant in your eyes merely because I don't understand that the inner workings of what you do somehow affects my everyday life?

I don't buy it. Just as I didn't buy that Student Government Association meeting I attended when the president swore up and down, multiple times (for emphasis) that it was he, and the association, that encouraged OC to begin a nursing program. How they came up with the idea that they, the majority of whose majors were far removed from science, were the first ones to contemplate our university having a nursing program in the face of many interested students and a culture deplete of workers... I'll never know.

But again, some of them are apparently my "buddies."

Also, if you're last name is as popular an OC chain as McDonald's is a food chain... that also doesn't make you my "buddy." I wouldn't care if your grandparents built the Bible building itself, that doesn't make you my "buddy."

If you don't know my name, learn it. Don't smile at me in passing and call me "buddy" and think you're cute and mature, because more often than not, I'm three or four years older than you.

And I've probably experienced a lot more.

Again, several of my friends call me "buddy." They can get away with it, because I am their "buddy." But if you don't know me? Don't call me that, because chances are, you're not my buddy, and probably don't even want to know me anyway.

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