How to lose friends and alienate people without even trying

My mother recently told me what to do to have more friends. “To have friends, you have to be a friend!” she said, using a tone of voice I remember well from childhood, the one that indicates she will always have the answers because she is, after, the grown up and I'm the stupid kid. Now she's 82 and half my size. I could take her. I'm not afraid of her or her voice anymore. But I have been thinking about what she said about friendship. I  suspect she is on to something.

Today I checked into my dissertation course room and discovered that my concept had been sent to the URR for approval. What is the URR? you ask. You and me both. It used to be the OAR. The something Academic Review. I forget what the O stood for. Now they have a new acronym, the URR. I think it's something like University Research Review... Google is no help on this one. (Although I was waylaid by the Google Art Project on the Google home page. Have you seen it? Art! For everyone! I am stoked. I couldn't get any images to load, though. Connection problems, as usual. Curse you, Century Link!)

Anyway, back to the URR. This is good news. I think. Apparently the committee deemed my prospectus ready for prime time. Just a few more days and I will know if my concept is approved. In the meantime, the university in its unfathomable wisdom has enrolled me in the next dissertation course. That was unexpected. I thought I had another week. The next course begins April 30. My question: Is my chairperson still on the job in between courses? Or is she parked in her recharging cubicle until it's time to reanimate?

Back to the topic. The grindingly relentless doctoral journey has taken a toll on me in many ways. While I admit I would be 55 even if I weren't stuck on the this Z-ticket ride, I might not be so... wrinkly? pasty? saggy? The truth is, physically I'm weak as a used tissue. Mentally I'm not in great shape either. I could blame menopause or my vegan debacle for my lack of mental acuity but I prefer to blame higher education. (It's so fashionable to do that these days.) But what I'm really talking about here is the toll this academic pursuit has taken on my social life. I have no friends!

So, in case you want to avoid being in this sad situation yourself, here are some things to avoid doing. On the other hand, if you are a chronic malcontent and you want to hone your whining skills, just follow this short checklist and you'll soon see the results you seek.

To lose friends and alienate people, do the following:

1. Only talk about yourself.
2. Interrupt other people.
3. Roll your eyes when other people are speaking.
4. Turn your back and walk away while saying something particularly snarky over your shoulder.
5. Miss appointments and don't apologize.
6. If you are a teacher, say to your students, “You are in college now, and in college we ________ (fill in the blank with the opposite of whatever stupid thing your students are doing).”

It really takes very little effort once you get the hang of it. You'll soon find yourself alone. Except maybe for your mother. You can always count on mom to say, “I told you so.”