By Nathan Schmidt
This spring, Fairfield University has announced a brand-new FYE Connect event consisting of making new invisible friends for oneself. The event, billed as a Zoom seminar for first-year students, will be held this Sunday from dawn to dusk by a rotating staff of lonely RAs who haven’t told anyone to stop making noise in months.
One such RA, Jillian Ingelham ‘21, reached out to Stagnation reporters over Zoom for an unscheduled and unsolicited interview. “We’re going to set a positive role model for first-year students, showing them how to connect with someone, anyone, anyone at all,” said Ingelham while drawing a smiley face on her hand with a permanent marker. “Look at Mister Pokey! Say hi, Mister Pokey!”
The content of “Making Invisible Friends” will be sorted into two categories: professional networking with people you’ll never meet in person, and social outreach to people you’ll also never meet in person. As an added layer of depth, students are also encouraged to forgo trying to find any other human beings to connect to, and focus on making up their own contacts who can stay with them all the time.
Ingelham added, “I’m thinking I might also try applying to an invisible grad school.”
The event has no limit for attendance, since Zoom has broken the laws and limitations of both physical space and the passage of time. Nevertheless, students are advised to sign up soon, because their invisible friends would no doubt resent not coming into existence.
Stagnation 