Flatties One by One

Dave/David
My socializing partner
Major: Geology, History
Origins: New Jersey (don’t judge), Williams College

Fun guy who is excited to experience new things and willing to put himself out there to give something new at least a try. He’s also just so enthusiastic with just about anything and happy. He almost always has a smile on and I really can’t imagine him angry. He’s become one of my partners in exercise and exploring, and my main cohort in cooking and socializing.

It’s great because we’re both aren’t that great with socializing, especially when it comes to huge crowds of people we don’t know and there’s dancing that doesn’t involve instructions like contra or standard steps like Cotton-Eyed-Joe. We tend to stand to the sides and watch, not doing a very good job with meeting new people. So we started to challenge each other with getting out and meeting people. One of our first attempts was at the international party organized by Otago’s international office at a bar (week two of living in the flat). We were sort of just sitting in the corner together watching people, until I ended up talking to this one girl in the booth next to us (mainly because we made eye contact and it felt more awkward not to acknowledge it). Dave congratulated me on my willingness to just step out and talk to someone; I then set the challenge that if we made eye contact with someone while we’re there, we had to at least introduce ourselves to them and share our favourite hobbies. We did pretty well for ourselves that night, meeting about three new people, some of whom we had decently long conversations with.

As I mentioned before, he’s out going in the sense of trying new things, which includes (since he’s been in Dunedin) capoeira (sort of a Brazilian martial art that’s very graceful and a lot like break dancing). Despite the fact your quads are dying after the first session, it seems as though it will become a weekly routine for him (after a little delay, I got sucked into it too). He’s also got to experience outdoor rock climbing for the first time this past weekend and he’s looking forward to trying contra dancing.

One of the best aspects I have to say about him is his ability to be spontaneous and remain positive (at least outwardly), even when things aren’t going as well as we hoped (wait until you hear about the Cargill hike). He’s also able to laugh at his own mistakes and not ashamed to admit things like the fact that he still enjoys Backstreet Boys.