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Andrew Byron ’16 expressed uncertainty yesterday about the whereabouts of the tight-knit and diverse group of friends he was led to believe was an essential part of the Brown experience. Byron, who has spent the first semester of his freshman year waiting for friends to show up just like the ones in the brochure he received during his senior year of high school, says he thought surely he would be sitting on the Main Green flanked by a smiling black girl and East Asian guy by now.
“It’s weird," said Byron. “I chose Brown because I wanted to spend my days wiling away the hours with a group of intellectually curious and easy going peers, but I guess I just haven’t found them yet.”
Byron says he has tried to spend as much time as possible in places where friends like the ones in the brochure are likely to show up. “I spent yesterday at the Ratty enjoying the wide variety of cuisines Brown has to offer," said Byron. “Then I even went to check out the brand new, state of the art fitness center. But I didn’t chat jovially with anyone the whole time," Byron lamented.
“Also, all my friends are white,” he added.
“Sometimes I just kick back and relax in my room. I sit on my bed, but my floor and desk chair, which should be occupied my close friends who happen to be racially ambiguous, are always empty," added Byron, as he dealt a pack of cards to the empty floor and desk chair.
“That kid down the hall is so weird," commented Rebecca Finn ’16. “He’s always freezing in positions like he’s talking to someone in a photograph but there’s no one there and he’s not in a photograph.”
Byron says that though the last few months have been discouraging, he knows friends like the ones in the brochure will come along eventually, “if I could just find some people who aren’t three-dimensional."
