Dorm Life: Social Butterflies versus Shadow People

Peering out the window from my dorm, I noticed how the freezing rain dripped onto the earth. The puddles that formed on the ground created a reflection from the sun and the clouds laid heavy in the sky.

Where has all the time gone? There’s only one week left until Thanksgiving break and finals week is approaching. The people in the Residence Hall seem to be walking shadow figures that carry a soul, yet I rarely catch glimpse of it. I go my way and they go theirs, yet we all live under the same roof.

Through observation, I’ve noticed most of the people who live here keep to themselves and stay secluded amongst their close-knit friends, they cling to the people they are now used to. I remember when I first moved here, I really wanted to branch out more and make a lot of friends, but I’ve settled into what I find most comfortable. However, not everyone here in the dorms is this way.

“It’s a small building, but whenever I go to work in the C-Store, I meet someone new,” said Shantell Willette.

Whenever she is working the C-store, the little convenience store where you can buy food and a few other miscellaneous items here in the dorms, she seems to be surrounded by different people who just sit there and talk with her as she works. Sometimes I’ll even see her singing with random people or reciting Shakespeare to strangers; that’s how I met her.

Shantell Willette, age 18, is a working towards getting her Associates of Arts right now. She was born and raised her in Coeur d’Alene but she went to Spirit Lake High School. She is arguably one of the more bubbly and social people who lives in the dorms. Unlike me, she seems to have more friends than she can keep track of. She is always seems to be hanging out with someone.

“I’ve only stayed in my own bed around 10 times. I am always staying the night over in one of my friend’s rooms just to watch movies and hang out,” said Willette.

Even while I was interviewing her, she brought two other people with her to my room and kept receiving text message after text message.

Willette’s nickname is Roulette because “you only get one shot with her.” Her fiery nickname matches her image. She has half of her head shaved and she has an “om” symbol shaved into that. She confesses the people here in Coeur d’Alene are more accepting of her image than they were at her high school. I thought maybe it was just because people in “the college scene” have decided to mature, but that wasn’t it.

“Spirit Lake High School is associated with the Aryan nation leader. The area is very racist. Being different is not acceptable in that area. That’s why I love being here, people are so accepting,” Willette said.

Roulette loves the fact that her friends are so easy to reach. All she has to do is walk a short distance in the same building and knock on their door and it’s a lot harder to ignore that. I can relate, in a way, it is handy for those few friends that I’ve made so far. It used to be a lot harder to meet up with people.

Though she said that living on campus does have its downsides too, she claims that when it comes to drama, “it’s like high school, but worse, because we all live together and that you really get to know people on a whole new level when you live with them” and that “living in dorms really changes people.”

She’s seen girls who were once goody-goody studious Christian girls turn into promiscuous partiers.

Hearing her perspective about living on campus really made me realize how different her experience here has been from mine.

I am definitely envious of how social she is and how easy it is for her to accumulate friend after friend. I love that about her, but I also do not wish to deal with the drama that she is dealing with.

Considering this made me just a little less concerned with being a social butterfly. Maybe the little cliché phrase “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side” would fit nicely here.  I would really rather not be caught up in all of that mess, but boy does it seem more appealing and lively.

Though I hated drama while I was in high school; I avoided it like the plague, so why would I suddenly want to change that? Maybe if I were to take the middle way on this one and just be a tad bit more social than I am now?

Again, this made me realize how much you can learn from everyone you meet and I still wonder what other lessons I might learn from some of the “walking shadow figures” who reside here. Who might I decide to approach next? Will they let me catch a glimpse of their soul or will they pass me by?