Eckroate: If you aren’t actually friends, don’t try to lunch

Don’t feel obligated to have lunch with anybody you have ever met

This lunch went so bad, senior Katherine McLean and freshman Vivian Nguyen resorted to watching YouTube videos

Dayu Yang / Staff Photographer

Enter two girls, both sophomores in college. Relationship: lived on the same floor in the residence hall the previous year. Generic “Happy birthday!” wall posts were exchanged over the summer.

They converse briefly. It’s just small talk. And then:

“Oh my gosh, it was so good running into you!”

“Yeah, we have to get lunch soon!”

“Absolutely, girl! Text me!”

“Will do!”

It’s awkward. One girl wonders if the other will actually text her to plan something. Simultaneously, she wonders if she should be the one to initiate. “Was she just saying that to be polite? Would she actually want to get lunch with me?” Comparable to questioning the meaning of life, no answer will suffice.

If the date, time and place aren’t immediately determined, assume that they never will be. Why? Because these girls are merely acquaintances.

For some reason, we feel obliged to advance our relationships to a level where getting together for meals is the norm. This is one step too far. Everyone can enjoy acquaintances without having to go the extra step into lunch date territory.

They are accessories to your group of party-goers. Someone’s roommate. A friend’s friend who is visiting for the weekend. She may have been cool, or maybe the two of you were the only ones at the bar who knew every single word to Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” rap.

But where did she go to high school? What’s her dog’s name?

No idea.

When these simple facts cannot be answered about someone, assume they are merely an acquaintance. Do not, while briefly chatting at a crosswalk, try to jump to the lunch-date level of friends with this person! To reach the lunch date, you have to bridge the gap.

And if you do find yourself wanting to jump from acquaintance to friend, there are a few tactics you can employ.

1. Start small. Pick something quick in the middle of the day, such as coffee. If you need to bail because it’s going so horribly, it makes sense for you to have to get to upper campus for your gym class or meet your group for a project somewhere very far away. Nobody will know the difference.

2. Be specific. Rather than saying, “We have to get lunch soon,” use actual times and dates. “Do you have a break in your schedule on Wednesday? We should get lunch!” Otherwise, the likelihood of these vague plans occurring is incredibly low.

3. Use the Internet. Seriously, no matter how much I hate it, Facebook chat might be one of the best options for planning things. Now that the chat feature is creepier than ever, you will see when the other person has viewed the message. They’re at their computer and can easily look into this week’s conflicts and obligations.

4. Keep it casual. Never, under any circumstances, start conversations about politics, religion or other controversial topics with someone you don’t know very well. This normally goes without saying, but think about other awkward chats. That girl from your French class does not want to hear about your most recent breakup with painstaking detail.

But don’t forget that acquaintances are important. They are there to give you the notes from the class you missed, respond to Facebook chats about tomorrow’s test, and commiserate over mutual inabilities to understand what the professor is saying. It’s nice to recognize a face in a huge lecture hall.

Sometimes, this is all we need. Besides, crying over the details of this morning’s physics exam is less than thrilling for your theater-major roommate. But that girl you sit next to in class? She’ll listen. She has the same grievances. Keep her around.

There is nothing rude in just ending the conversation before the empty promises of friendship start flowing. “It was so good running into you!” sometimes really means “I enjoyed our brief chat about Pittsburgh weather. Thanks for participating.” Leave it there. It’s worthy just the way it is.

Arrange your lunch date with Claire by emailing her at ceckroate@gmail.com.