Icebreaker games + holy rude straight people!
On Monday, I went to the first QSA meeting of the year. We played icebreaker games.
I know that most people hate these games. They're pointless and awkward. But, for somebody like me, somebody with social anxiety, they're not just annoying, they're stressful. And saying "no, I don't want to play" is just as stressful, because you're singled out as the one who doesn't want to play, and you're stuck wondering what kind of assumptions people are making... The only thing there was for me to do was stick it out and hope I didn't have to do anything.
The game was one called "I love my neighbor", where everybody stands in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person lists a character trait about themself, and everybody in the circle who shares that trait has to run to the middle, and then try to get back into the circle by taking one of the spots that somebody else came from. The last person to get a spot has to be the person in the middle who states a trait about themself again and it all starts over.
So, this adds a whole new level of stress to the icebreaker game concept. All the pressure is put onto you to not be the person in the middle. This is not a game to me, this is a race for survival and if I got stuck in the middle I would die.
I'm perfectly okay with doing the whole "sitting in a circle and going around and stating your name and an interesting thing about yourself" deal. I know that for many people even that is stresful, but I'm mostly okay with it. But icebreaker games, not so much.
The other part of the meeting that stuck out to me was the presence of these two freshman girls. At the start of the meeting, they came up to the president and announced "we're just here for a class assignment, we're just observing". Um. We're not a goddamn ZOO. Observe all you like, whatever, but why do you have to make a big deal about it? There are so many straight people in this club. Our treasurer is straight. We love straight people! When they're not being dicks, at least.
They then proceeded to sit as far away as possible from everybody. When we did do the "sit in a circle and state your name" thing, when the president looked at them, they went "OH NO, WE'RE JUST OBSERVING" and tried to get out of it. Then she asked them to do it anyway, and they did.
Then, they refused to play in the icebreaker game. This wasn't a matter of "we have social anxiety". This was a matter of "we're only here because we're being forced to OBSERVE and we want to make sure everybody knows that WE'RE NOT QUEER and that we want to take as little part in this nonsense as possible!"
C'mon guys. Maybe it's time to grow up a little bit and stop worrying if people think you're queer or not. It's really not that embarrassing, I promise.
I know that most people hate these games. They're pointless and awkward. But, for somebody like me, somebody with social anxiety, they're not just annoying, they're stressful. And saying "no, I don't want to play" is just as stressful, because you're singled out as the one who doesn't want to play, and you're stuck wondering what kind of assumptions people are making... The only thing there was for me to do was stick it out and hope I didn't have to do anything.
The game was one called "I love my neighbor", where everybody stands in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person lists a character trait about themself, and everybody in the circle who shares that trait has to run to the middle, and then try to get back into the circle by taking one of the spots that somebody else came from. The last person to get a spot has to be the person in the middle who states a trait about themself again and it all starts over.
So, this adds a whole new level of stress to the icebreaker game concept. All the pressure is put onto you to not be the person in the middle. This is not a game to me, this is a race for survival and if I got stuck in the middle I would die.
I'm perfectly okay with doing the whole "sitting in a circle and going around and stating your name and an interesting thing about yourself" deal. I know that for many people even that is stresful, but I'm mostly okay with it. But icebreaker games, not so much.
The other part of the meeting that stuck out to me was the presence of these two freshman girls. At the start of the meeting, they came up to the president and announced "we're just here for a class assignment, we're just observing". Um. We're not a goddamn ZOO. Observe all you like, whatever, but why do you have to make a big deal about it? There are so many straight people in this club. Our treasurer is straight. We love straight people! When they're not being dicks, at least.
They then proceeded to sit as far away as possible from everybody. When we did do the "sit in a circle and state your name" thing, when the president looked at them, they went "OH NO, WE'RE JUST OBSERVING" and tried to get out of it. Then she asked them to do it anyway, and they did.
Then, they refused to play in the icebreaker game. This wasn't a matter of "we have social anxiety". This was a matter of "we're only here because we're being forced to OBSERVE and we want to make sure everybody knows that WE'RE NOT QUEER and that we want to take as little part in this nonsense as possible!"
C'mon guys. Maybe it's time to grow up a little bit and stop worrying if people think you're queer or not. It's really not that embarrassing, I promise.