By John Smith (NOT Faculty Dean of Quincy House)

Hey there!  It’s me, your friendly and 100% non-fictional classmate, John Smith.  I love so many things about Harvard, but one of my favorites has got to be Community Night in the house dining halls.  Boy, oh boy, is that a special treat.  Here are just a few of the reasons I love Community Night so much.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like it’s too easy to eat meals with my friends.  Six nights a week, if I want to get dinner with a friend, we can go to whoever’s house is most convenient, and there’s no stress involved at all.  Talk about boring!  Community Night sure solves that problem—nothing beats the feeling of being kept out of the dining hall where you had planned to eat with your friends.  I gotta admit, I’d look forward to Thursdays even if that were the only great thing about Community Night, but the list goes on.

Another wonderful part of Community Night is that it allows--well, I guess the more accurate term is "forces"--students to take a breather from any social interaction at all.  The isolation they feel when they realize they don’t know anyone else in their house’s dining hall well enough to sit with them is just so nice.  Students eat by themselves, casting around in vain for a friendly face and contemplating that rather than building a House community for them, Community Night has made it as clear as day that they do not belong to any House community at all.  Man, what a great time! 

I know what you’re thinking: “John, Community Night sounds so amazing!  It separates you from your friends AND makes you feel alone?  I’m sold already!”  But I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.  That part, my friends, is the resentment that Community Night engenders against Houses. Nothing makes me happier than the annoyance and frustration that students feel when Community Night interferes with their plans.  I’m getting all warm inside just thinking about the times I’ve seen people curse their House’s names when they realize that tonight is Community Night.   If you’re not on board with Community Night now, I don’t think I can help you.

By the way, I hope I’ll see you at the HoCo Stein this weekend.  Between the cheesy music (who needs cool tunes when we can listen to songs that were popular last year?) and the sparse attendance (it wouldn't be cool if it were mainstream, right?), I think it’s safe to say it will be LIT!