3* BLACKOUT
The Boomerang | Fall 2021
Can You Keep Me from Falling in Love? by Anonymous In the careful glimpses taken in reluctance, hands? What a foolish stunt. It’s this wild atit is clear that people in love need no reason tempt at making yourself feel remotely betto hide it. It feels like a shiny new piece tak- ter by fixing someone else. This undeniable ing residence in the exposed houses during urge to feel validated when they seek you out Christmas time. But I don't wish to fall in or even just look at you differently. love. What a strange gimmick it is. Buy them flowers and lay your heart out. No no, I think Is this why people feel the urge to make rothey tell you to leave it unprotected. mantic comedies? The never-ending documentation of gender roles and expectations. The very expectation that you eventually project onto your partner and later, tell your friends another version of it. This isn’t an expose or an opinion piece. I could never be able to make up my mind to call it anything. While you read this, feel free to psychoanalyse me, it’s only fair. And as you’re doing this, tell me - what makes someone worthy of love? What makes it acceptable or even appropriate to flaunt it? Walk into Jumbo and hold hands? Cycle and hold
Or what about that sinking feeling of being frozen, realizing you might never be loved? This is a projection of my fear. This might be the forecast of my future. It is etched in
the possible glances I could’ve received but never did. But this is all mere frustration, nothing else. Because the next morning, such a strong belief in love will come over me that I will barely remember the remnants of such mistrust. It won’t sicken me as it once used to. If you see me reaching for a hand to hold in Jumbo, thrust this out for me to read. I might fold it carefully and place it in the confines of a bag I will never use or I might just tell you I was wrong. I probably am.
Hello, Goodbye by Anonymous
The weather is perfect and with an empty of communication, nothing concrete. Some- slow down, and almost never answer truthgrocery bag in each hand I cross campus on time, somewhere we are all going to catch up fully? Of course, I am exaggerating. Not my way to the supermarket. Walking slowly, with someone. Because admit it, we have all everyone on campus behaves this way and if the unfamiliar faces of first years glide past made these same vague plans. they do, who knows, it might just be a peras I approach the gate. Then, from around a sonal thing. Still, I tend to miss the sincere corner, a friendly face appears. It’s that per- I am not bitter or upset. I don’t want to hate and direct greetings that I’m used to, and son I talked to last week at that one party. Or on campus or cancel our cherished culture. these shallow alternatives can make me feel that person I took two courses with that one I am simply wondering. Where are these quite insecure. Is nobody interested in me? semester. Or that person I have known since customs actually coming from? Could it be my introweek. As we get closer our mouths an international thing? Afterall, countless "Where are these customs actually comsimultaneously morph into a smile. Forced other aspects of expat life have seeped into ing from? Could it be an international or authentic, who can tell anymore. I raise our student experience. Or perhaps it’s an thing?" my hand as if someone is pulling it up. I have American thing. As Amazon packages flood turned into a puppet, my strings pulled by the reception and the free world is indoc- But when I go home over the break these UCU etiquette. We walk as we wave. ‘How trinating us with their letter grades (by the very greeting habits accompany me. They sit are you?’, they say. ‘Good, and you?’, I reply. way, the E is missing), why not also greet the next to me on the train, they ride shotgun ‘Fine’. And the exchange ends. American way? in my car and walk alongside me as I enter my parent’s house. Yesterday, as I was walkOr maybe it’s just a young people thing. We ing down the street, a neighbour greeted me. might just be unwilling to have clumsy con- In passing I asked her, ‘how are you?’, and versations in our awkward states of being. then quickly walked on. She turned around, watching me go, confused. While this might be the norm on campus, it is not where I am from. ‘Did you ignore our neighbour?’, my mum asked me this morning. Embarrassed, I stuttered, ‘yes’. On good days or when meeting exceptional people these conversations may be extended. ‘Good’ could turn into ‘tired’, along with a brief summation of due dates. ‘How are you’, might include a short delay in movement, like when someone almost comes to a stop. And of course, there is always that special version of the campus greeting. That meaningful addition specifically meant to cover the tracks of our indifference: ‘we should catch up!’ No time frame, no mode
Yet there is also some logic to these instances of asocial socializing. We live on a small acreage, we trot down common paths, and frequent the same buildings. Not to mention, everyone knows everyone. So if we were to start chatting, we might never stop. Is that why we keep it short, why we don’t
