It’s always an interesting experience when friends from home or from other schools come to visit. You probably haven’t seen them in a while. You miss them and you can’t wait to give them a taste of the Syracuse University social life.

A visit from friends really helps put your own experiences in perspective, and it offers you the chance to look at your life through someone else’s eyes.

There are several categories of friends that tend to show up. There’s the embarrassing drunk friend. The embarrassing drunk friend gets way too drunk way too fast, starts touching you incessantly and shouts at anyone in the vicinity that he is your ‘homeboy (or homegirl) visiting from home!’

There’s the poorly timed friend. There’s technically nothing wrong with this friend other than the fact that he (or she) happened to innocently show up on the one weekend you did not plan to spend sleeping at home. For that reason, this well-meaning friend unfortunately and immediately becomes a largely irritating presence in your life.

And then, of course, there’s the hot friend. The hot friend is the one you try to not take out in public because his or her attractiveness ruins your life. Seriously. Sad but true, we all have them.

When they arrive, it is your duty as host to keep them thoroughly entertained. Based on personal experience, here are a few things visiting friends do not enjoy: taking a campus tour — there’s walking involved; meeting any friend who isn’t cute but is ‘like, so nice;’ and being ditched — visiting friends tend to be under the impression that they are not expected to find their own way home and that living quarters are guaranteed.

On the other hand, here are some things visiting friends do enjoy: drunk food, discussing their own school and borrowing your clothes. They also enjoy collecting and leaving with souvenirs: street signs, other people’s alcohol, your phone. (‘Woops! I think I grabbed your BlackBerry instead of mine. But don’t worry, I think I might have a friend visiting SU in, like, two weeks. I’ll have him get it back to you. Oh, and did I forget my retainers?)

But all of that aside, visiting friends can still be a good time as long as they are not particularly judgmental, classy or in the habit of reporting things back to their parents. Visiting friends want to make the most of their weekend. They will distract you from your homework and studies, start dance parties on furniture, remind you that worrying about money is useless and encourage you to spend it, force you to talk to people you normally avoid, and eventually depart in a cloud of smoke and debris.

And after all that is usually when you realize that no matter how much fun your old friends are, the fact of the matter is they still can’t keep up. Moral of the story? It’s nice to have friends visit, but it’s so much nicer when they don’t.

Marina Charny is a senior English and textual studies and writing major. Her column usually appears every Monday. She can be reached at mcharny@syr.edu.

 

Published on April 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm