I've well documented, whether on Twitter or on this very blog, that my first year at university was probably the most entertaining and the happiest time of my life so far. Most of the people that lived in my dorm were a delight to be around, and to get to know. However, with all the great people I met, there were a couple of people who lived at my dorm who were a bit odd. I am going to tell the story of one such person that I've regularly encountered in my first year at university.
These are my experiences interacting with a man named Dave.
Dave looked like your typical nerd. He was a rather tall fellow, almost Frankenstein-like. His skin was pale white, and the blushes on his face were as prominent as the glasses he wore. He always dressed in the same cargo pants, like he was about to go camping, and he was always hunched over when he walked, like Quasimodo. His freakiest feature was his fingers. I can't describe it in words, but this popular YouTube video easily expresses what it looks like. His voice was as deep as the bottom of the ocean, like a lonely blue whale yearning for a soul-mate.
Dave was a fourth-year student at university while myself and almost everyone else in the dorm were first-year students. All throughout his university career, he lived in a dorm, and it surprised me why he wouldn't live off-campus after his first year. I can only speculate, but maybe he wanted to try to get to know new people every year and build some friendships, but as I got to know him throughout my first year of university, he turned out to be quite a bizarre individual.
Whenever my friends and I were doing something in the lounge, whether it be playing cards or video games, Dave would walk in and observe what we were up to. Sometimes he would just walk out and not say a word, while other times he would try to strike up a conversation with us. Even though the commonalities between us and him were small, he was included in the activities that we did. As we got to know him, he became more comfortable with the rest of us, and we were exposed to some of the strange things that he did.
A couple of times that we ate together, Dave would order a sub and then proceed to apply an insane amount of mayonnaise to his sub. Every time he took a bite of his sub, a big gob of mayo would drop from his sub (or his mouth) onto the paper the sub was originally wrapped in. That's pretty disgusting, if I do say so myself. When we would order pizza, he would take a slice from the pizza box when he wasn't even half way finished eating the slice already in his hand, which is a bit greedy in my opinion. When it came to girls that he didn't like, he would call them "wenches" like we were living in a time when pirates dominated the seas. A phrase that he regularly says is "You've gotta be fucking me" which is a variation of the popular phrase "You've gotta be kidding me" (though I'm pretty sure no girl wanted to fuck him). I got the feeling that his presence in the activities my friends and I did made everyone feel uncomfortable, but no one had the guts to speak up about it, except behind his back.
Dave was also an avid drinker, and it seemed like every evening, he would always have a can of beer while we were all hanging out in the common lounge. Most of the dorm-mates have not seen him drunk, but I remember the distinct time when I've actually seen him drunk. One night, my friend and myself were playing Zelda in the lounge, and he would come in and watch us play while helping us out with the quest and pounding beers. He ended up getting drunk, and kept referring to the Song of Time as the "SOT". Whenever Link was in danger, Dave would angrily tell us to "play the SOT". This may not be the most entertaining drunk story, but let me emphasize that despite drinking beer every evening, you would never see him actually get drunk. It would be like watching the Aurora Borealis.
Most of the interactions with Dave are whenever we would play Super Smash Brothers on the old N64 in the common lounge. Dave would play along with us, and because no one really liked him, everyone would try to eliminate him from the game early. Whenever I played Smash with him, I always made sure that I get him out first. He had names for the characters I always used. For example, he kept calling Pikachu "the rat" (Sidenote: Pikachu is a mouse), and he kept calling Yoshi "the constipated dinosaur", which is true, to be honest.
He would also get angry when he gets eliminated from Smash. On a couple of occasions, he would throw the controller on the ground and walk out of the common lounge. There was also another incident that would live in first year infamy. My friends thought I had a bit of a rivalry with Dave when it came to Smash. One day, after I again crushed Dave, I blurted out the following line:
"I don't consider you my rival, I consider you my bitch."
I never meant to actually say those words, but Dave was upset, called me some names, and then stormed out of the common lounge. After he stormed out, everyone started bursting out in laughter. I regret saying those words now, but I guess it acted like a release of what everyone thought of him. Nobody really liked him.
Looking back at all of these interactions with Dave, Dave was actually a nice guy and tried to fit in. But his awkwardness, behaviors, and mannerisms made everyone feel uncomfortable. No one really had the guts to tell him their feelings toward him directly, so we all shunned him in a passive-aggressive way. At the end of first year, I could see why he lived in the dorms for his entire time in university, and I think it was because he couldn't get along with his dorm-mates in prior years. It's quite sad thinking about it, and from time-to-time, I wondered what he would be up to now.
I know it's about 5 years too late, but I would like to apologize for my conduct towards you. I genuinely hope you are living a nicer life.
