A look at the world through my eyes. Well, just part of the world.

When we were younger, we were taught that when you see someone you know, the appropriate gesture is to wave and say, “Hello.”

This seems like it would be a pretty clean and simple rule, void of any confusion, but apparently college can complicate even the most innocent social norms.

My friend Pauline and I were at a party recently when she saw someone she recognized but chose not to say hi.

I agreed that plunging into the crowd simply to engage in mindless small talk was useless, but I asked Pauline anyway if she thought students at other schools encounter that same situation: two people who know they’ve met before, both pretending they haven’t.

She told me it was just a GW thing.

As I grabbed hold of my pimp hat’s leopard-print brim – it was a themed party – I contemplated whether or not the social interactions at GW are unlike those at other colleges.

At this school, there are all sorts of relationships worth analyzing.

There’s the “One and Done” – the person you wave to once after meeting them and then cut all ties to after that. This can cause some hurt feelings if one person ends things before the other. Timing is key.

Then there’s the person you wave to every time you run into him or her, but you don’t really smile and there’s no actual waving of the hand – just a slight raise of the palm. These faux-friends are always fun to deal with because their pained grins have “Do we really still need to do this?” written all over them. I always pray my smile doesn’t say, “I’m so glad we kept in touch.”

We also have the particularly awkward one-sided wave. I think “one-sided” is pretty self explanatory, but to put it more bluntly: The bitch don’t recognize you. We all fall victim to this embarrassing moment at some point, and all we can do is hope the other person is kind enough to offer a fake smile that shows they’ve never seen you before in their life.

To be honest, I’ve never understood the harm in just pretending you know someone. A friend of mine in high school used to walk up to strangers in the hallway and scream, “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” It usually produced some interesting results, until she got bored of this and progressed to flapping her tongue at people.

There are also those select few who you meet every weekend but have to be reintroduced to each time. I had to tell this one girl my name at least five times before I came to the conclusion that my face isn’t memorable. I still see her on the street often, but we just give each other that  “Have we met seven times?” look and keep walking.

It’s hard to say whether these day-to-day relationships are found #onlyatGW. Though many students here complain about a general coldness among the student population, this could just be a coming-of-age realization of how standoffish people can be.

I just hope the “I’ve seen you naked” smile dies out quick after college.