"Hovering"

Exam week has wonderfully highlighted two behaviors that happen all the time around college.

First, it's finals so everyone wants to study. Everywhere. Typically, you might have to walk around a little bit to find a table, but this week, you usually have to employ a technique I call "hovering". Other people might call it "finding the people who look most likely to leave first and stalking their table until they leave. Then you pounce on it like a tiger because you never know who else might be trying to stalk the table too and you don't want to lose out."

This is great if you get a table this way, (it's exactly how I got the table I wrote the first draft of this at) but it get's really awkward if you're being the stalked. I never know if I should make it obvious that I'm not done yet, or if I should hurry up and finish so other people have some space. Occasionally, I get the urge to cut people off and just stay at my table, even if I don't have a good reason to if they're being obnoxious about it. Kinda like when you get the urge to not let the obnoxious driver who tries to jump to the front of the line over in front of me.

Anyways, I feel like I've seen this happen 10x more this past week, but it's always a problem. Especially in the dining halls right at lunch or dinner. And actually, if you encounter the meal variety, you'll get some people who are the "I'm going to sit down at your table because there's an open seat. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you having a private conversation? What's it about?"

Secondly, I talked about awkward interactions with people you know already, but what about that person you don't know? You know it happens. You're both headed opposite directions (or maybe you're stalking their table and they look up) and you have a moment of unexpected eye contact. It's in that moment you realize that your face, though rightfully so due to the lack of seating, lack of sleep, and stress of exams, carries an expression that says you're going to kill someone if you have to carry your laptop and 20 lbs of books for another five minutes. But now you're staring straight into someone's soul through their innocent eyes and you're worried they're going to think that expression is directed at them, so you force a nice little fake smile. The kind where you really just shove the corners of your mouth up. You don't even try for a toothy smile cause you know they're probably coffee stained (you can't pull an all-nighter without any coffee), and you just don't have enough time to figure out which muscle it is that makes your 'eyes smile'.

Somehow, this seems to do the trick cause you get the same sort of fake smile back and then continue on your way.