Name to a Face

Since I have moved back to Peterborough and started attending Trent I have noticed some differences between Trent and Redeemer. At Trent you do not get accused of being Dutch when you have blue eyes and blond hair...you are just a minority. At Trent if you ask for a Dookie you will either get a weird look or you will get a weird look and a cookie. At Trent if you are wearing orange people will assume that you are a local and hunting season has been extended.

I think that one of the most obvious differences that I have noticed between Redeemer University College and Trent University is really the population size. this might seem a bit strange to some people. I mean after all, Trent University is known for being one of the smaller schools in Ontario.

However, for those of you who have been to Redeemer, you will know that the amount of people who are on campus rarely tips the one thousand mark--and that's even on days that all of the sports teams are playing home games. As a result of this, I was fairly confident that I could mentally place everyone at Redeemer. Granted I might not know them personally, but i could usually contextualize them.

Example: "Do you know Tom Smith?"

"Oh, Tom...he was captain of the hockey team, lived on Garner and married Sarah."

(As unbelievable as that example is, it is also all true.)

or,

"Gavin Ewing...oh yeah...lives with so and so and he was the guy who accidentally tree-planted himself off of a cliff one day." Actually that is a really funny story. One day me and Dowes were planting with Gavin and, because it was a Saturday, we were making top ten lists to make the time go faster. Dowes and I both had our heads down planting and were listening to Gavin list his top ten most date-able girls at Redeemer (ask me in private and I have no scruples about spilling all for a small price). At around number three on the list Gav got distracted with planting and stopped talking. After a moment we called to Gavin to get his attention and there was no answer. After standing up we realized that we couldn't see him anywhere and went running in his direction. We came to an eight foot cliff and at the bottom of it, wedged with his back against a tree, feet pointing up the cliff, trees, shovel and helmet scattered for yards around him, was Gavin. He had actually walked off the edge of a cliff in his distraction over deciding who number three on his list would be.

Right. At Trent I cannot contextualize everyone that I see on a day to day basis. I don't know the people I see, nor can I place them into a group of people that I might know or categorize them by what they do or who their prof is. However this does not prevent me from recognizing some people from a distance. I see them several times a week and due to scheduling factors I usually see them in the same places. I do not talk to them or have any social contact for that matter. But they are familiar.

In 1972, Stanley Milgram coined the term familiar stranger(or stole it from a less publicized friend). He stated that a familiar stranger is a person we regularly encounter but have no interaction with. For instance the person who you jog past as they are mowing their lawn on a regular basis. (provided that you have kept your New Year's resolution to jog until their lawn needs mowing and that they have kept their New Year's resolution to mow their lawn) Or a person that you see on your daily commute to school or work. Or that person that is always in the grocery store at the same time as you.

One of my familiar strangers is a woman who walks past my office two or three times a day. Anyways I hope that she is a familiar stranger and not a stalker...