Abandon hope, ye enrolling here

Good freshpeople, transfers and sexually frustrated evangelicals: welcome to campus.

If you have the misfortune of being like my freshman self, you spent the months preceding this week imagining the doubtlessly hilarious and adorable ways you’ll meet the cast of characters who will flesh out the saga of your college life — which, you’re pretty sure, someone is filming.

Perhaps, after struggling for hours trying to loft your beds, you and your new roommate will give up and go smoke a joint together behind Ehringhaus — giving your impending best friendship the memorable start that you’ll laugh about for years.

After a particularly riveting lecture, during which they cursed twice, maybe your professor will tell you that, amid 250 other students, they noticed your potential. Then they’ll invite you to coffee and dispense aphoristic wisdoms that you’ll cite in your autobiography.

Maybe, while you’re sitting in Starbucks reading “Infinite Jest,” a beautiful person will approach you, tell you that they also think David Foster Wallace was the savior of literature, and immediately ask you on a date where you will touch each other’s bodies and souls.

But probably none of these things will happen.

It’s a sad truth, but meet-cutes usually only happen in movies and amateur erotica. In real life, not a lot of things are cute, certain puppies and the Manatee Squash YouTube video excepted.

So, to eschew disappointment, here’s a list of places where you will, in all probability, make zero meaningful connections.

1) A dorm laundry room. Everyone’s too busy strategizing washer-to-dryer transfers and scampering to pick up damp underwear off the floor.

2) A frat(ernity) party. A good rule of thumb: a given area’s potential for forging lasting friendships is inversely proportional to said area’s concentration of Rohypnol.

3) Class. There are some exceptions, but in all likelihood you will pretend to text when you cross the quad at the same time as the person who sits near you in ANTH 101.

4) The library. That is, unless you post a Craigslist ad

By all means, prove me wrong. I’d love for this campus to be a place where the number of scriptworthy meetings exceeds that of headphoned people watching Netflix by themselves in the dining hall.

Go forth, shake hands, crack jokes, remember names. Live a storied life. But for what it’s worth, the foundation of my most valued relationships here was laid by a series of staccato lunch appointments and eventually cemented by mutual intoxication (or the other way around). That system doesn’t exactly lend itself to narrative, but I’ve been happy with the results so far.

This column’s on the opinion page, so: free Pussy Riot, leave Kristen Stewart alone, forget the idea of the quintessential “college experience” and try to be a decent person. I’ll be your friend if no one else will.