Running the gantlet: Tablers in the Commons

As you walk by, you pull out your phone, you search through your bag, you start an intense conversation with your friend walking with you, you claim momentary deafness, you have a sudden coughing attack ... you do everything, you try with all the innovativeness of a University of Richmond student to avoid making eye contact.

Does this laundry list of evasive tactics strike a chord with you? Does it remind you something that you might occasionally do? Perhaps every time you walk through the Tyler Haynes Commons?

There is no point in trying to deny it, everyone, myself included (very often), is guilty of at least once, or more likely, once per day, trying to avoid the Tyler Haynes tablers.

Having tabled myself, I have felt the pain of the tablers. It is the best way to get the attention of Richmond students because its almost impossible to go a whole day without a Commons walk-through, but it can certainly be a dirty job.

We all have to feel the sting of rejection as we sit there and watch people desperately try to avoid us at least once in our time here at the university.

There is nothing worse than sitting there, feeling uncomfortable and hungry, and knowing that you are going to be blatantly ignored for the next hour as you blend into the Richmond tabling background scene.

However, you take this feeling of being ignored and you try to morph it into the feeling of not caring if you annoy people, and this is when the call-outs begin.

The more people ignore you, the more you want to yell at the next person walking by. So you do, and he ignores you. But, since you are a strong and independent person, you take every ounce of strength and self-confidence you can muster up to recover, try again and be similarly ignored (wow, this shockingly sounds very much like my dating life).

Having participated in this sick routine as both a tabler and a walker-by, I have started to dread walking through the Commons. I typically avoid it by pulling out my phone and having an entire conversation with my "mother."

And by mother I mean I just pull out my phone and start talking to absolutely no one, but I try to make the conversation sound as real as possible so that no one suspects me of being a rude, heartless table-avoider.

But, on the off-chance that I forget to pull out my phone or that it's too deep in my absurdly packed Longchamp bag (yes, something that happens very often here to the lovely Richmond ladies. If you're anything like me, and your phone is not in your hand, it is probably at the bottom of your purple, red, black, brown, navy or pink perfectly-sized-for-all-your-books-and-laptop Longchamp along with that pack of gum you can never find, your Vera Bradley SpiderCard holder thing-a-ma-bob and a shred of your dignity).

So while desperately trying to find said phone, you hear it. Yes, those dreadful words that immediately leave you feeling awkward and flustered ... "You know that you want to buy [insert object] to help support [insert philanthropy, organization or starving child's name]."

Now, you find yourself in a difficult position. You can ignore those words and keep walking, you can smile really awkwardly and keep walking, you can say no thanks or if you're me, and you don't have enough of a backbone to say no, you say "sure" when in your head you're really thinking, "No, I don't want to give you my valuable Spider dollars, but since you called me out and I can't sleep at night if I don't help the starving children, am I going to write down my ID number and donate? Abso-fricken-lutely," and you will then walk away wondering how on Earth they got you again!

You knew this was going to happen and still you fell right into the tabling trap. Damnit.

As you proceed to walk through the automatic doors, which thank God we got because they alleviate so much awkwardness (should you hold the door or not? Is he too far away to hold it? Will he have to walk significantly faster and feel awkward about it? Or will you look like a jerk for not holding it?), you prepare yourself to participate in this rehearsed tabler/walker performance over and over again.

You know that without a doubt the tabling awkwardness will be an unavoidable part of your daily routine here at Richmond -- right next to walking past (and similarly avoiding) trashy lodge hookups or reaching for your SpiderCard at the D-Hall line, before they are ready to give it back to you.

Gotta love the little awkward moments in life!