COLUMN: "Solitary Confinement"

From Caren Lissner's "Pretty Sneaky Sis," Spring '92. "It's the terror of knowing What this world is about; Watching some good friends screaming, 'Let me out . . . '" David Bowie "Under Pressure" · Thursday morning, I was awakened around 7:30 by the sound of walkee-talkees outside my bedroom. When I became conscious enough to realize that the chatter wasn't emanating from my clock radio, I pulled myself out of bed and peeked outside my door. "The police," my roommate explained. "They said there was an accident and they wanted to know if there were any men in our room last night." I didn't learn what had happened until nighttime. The man at the High Rise East desk hadn't been allowed to tell me. I figured someone had thrown something out the window and smashed a parked car again. In actuality, the police were searching each southeast corner room in my building in order to see if anyone was missing from the apartment. University employees had found a body on the ground in that corner. He was a jumping victim, the second undergraduate suicide here in a little over two weeks. I've heard that he often experienced feelings of isolation. I'm not going to pretend I know what was going through his mind or through the mind of anyone who decides to end his own life. I'm not a psychiatrist or someone who has considered suicide. But I would like to talk about loneliness. There are support groups for recovering alcoholics, minority groups, and people who recently lost a parent, but there are none for people who are just plain lonely. And why would there be? Many students would be ashamed to go. Who wants to admit they don't have friends? I have no idea what it feels like to be on the verge of suicide because I know there's too much in my life that I enjoy and can look forward to. But I have felt, as many people have, that there are only a few people that would really listen if I had a problem. I haven't really talked to my floormates about anything serious before, but when we discussed the recent suicides, they told me that they would listen, and that they'd often felt lonely themselves. It's a shame it takes a suicide to get people talking about this. People who are lonely probably don't realize that there are many people out there who need a good friend and would love to meet them. The same is probably true for people who constantly moan about the lack of a boyfriend or girlfriend. (I don't know if many of the males around here do this, but it's sure a popular activity among females.) Unfortunately, there's no way to bring all of them together right now. It's a fact that no one wants to admit he's alone. Having no friends isn't something people want to brag about. Spring Fling starts Friday. I know of at least one attempted suicide during a past Fling. I suppose it's easy to feel lonely when everybody else seems to be having so much fun. During this weekend there will probably be many social activities besides frat parties, but most weekends there are few alternatives. I can't help thinking there might be a problem or two with the social life here. The only easy-access social events on weekends are fraternity parties. The University provides plenty of activities for freshmen during New Student Orientation -- activities that most beer-craving upperclassmen would publicly sneer at -- but I'll bet there are a few students who would like to see some of them for upperclassmen. Not everyone here wants to get drunk and scream over loud music every single weekend, although it often seems that way. In fact, the mocktail party on Locust Walk Monday was a very crowded function. But Drug and Alcohol Awareness Week should not be the only time for events of that sort. For instance, during New Student Orientation we had a campus-wide movie night and a freshman mixer. After that week, we were on our own. I live in High Rise East now, and I made several requests at the beginning of the year to residential advisors and administrators for some sort of HRE upperclass get-together to be held in the rooftop lounge. A friend of mine made some requests, too. All of these were apparently ignored. I guess it doesn't matter that I only know two people in my dorm who aren't on my floor. First-year students have the best chance of making close friends on their freshman floor. But after students leave their freshman floor, it is easy for them to feel a stagnation in the amount of new people they meet. How many people on a High Rise floor get to know each other well? And that's assuming that everyone has a good freshman year experience, which not everyone does. There's always a chance of not fitting in on your freshman floor, or living over a Quadrangle stairwell and not meeting anybody and having no one to room with the following year. There's more to the high demand for single apartments than just a need for people to have their own space. College Houses are an excellent choice if this happens to you, but the administrators in charge of the High Rises should at least attempt to do more there than two housewide brunches a year. Of course, I can't blame the social life, structure of the High Rises, unreachable professors or a large university for causing every feeling of isolation on campus. But more needs to be done than checking the window stops in the High Rises. Monday evening there was a suicide discussion in High Rise East in response to Matthew Bronstein's death. It appeared to be a worthwhile and cathartic experience for those who attended, a few of whom confessed that past feelings of isolation or friendlessness had led them to contemplate suicide themselves. Signs in the dormitory's lobby had announced the event, but there were no signs posted in High Rise South or North. What if people outside the dorm were affected by the suicide? Is it going to take a tragedy in both North and South to get discussions in North and South? And what about the other dorms? Why hasn't Student Health done anything more to reach the University and comment on the recent suicides than submit a column on suicide signs? I learned those in ninth grade health. Why not tell people that there are other people feeling lonely and isolated? Why not have a campus-wide discussion of what happened, instead of forgeting about it? There's no way of knowing which of the hundreds of people you say "Hi!" to on the Walk really need to talk and which don't. The best we can do is try to listen and keep our doors open. I'd like to see an open discussion of University life in general in the near future. Hopefully my suggestion will make more of an impact than the one regarding a HRE upperclass social. · Caren Lissner is a junior English major from Old Bridge, New Jersey. Pretty Sneaky Sis normally appears alternate Fridays.