deep talks by Ankita D. '23

The weird thing about quarantine is that I’m actually being better about staying in touch with my friends than I was when I was while I was at MIT…and surrounded by my friends. I attribute this to general boredom and copious amounts of free time; binge-watching TV shows alone doesn’t cut it for my social battery anymore, so I make an active effort to message and video call different groups of people. Part of it might also be FOMO—when I would hang out with people at night at my dorm, I would be reluctant to go seek out the company of others since the activation energy for doing so was dummy high and because I didn’t want to miss out on anything at my dorm. At home, though, I don’t have that issue…

Sadly, one element of campus life that 2 am video calls just can’t manage to capture is ~the deep talk~. Most college students have experienced this in some respect; you’re chilling with some friends late at night somewhere after finishing a difficult assignment, and then suddenly it’s 6 am and you’ve all either thoroughly trampled on capitalism or come to the conclusion that you are incapable of love.

…or something of that sort.

Anyway, one thing that I’ve started to do with my friends is playing the game Askhole.⁠01 warning: this game has content that is not suitable for children in the slighest. be careful lol This game entails asking people questions that usually split participants 50-50, generate lengthy discussion, and make you feel extremely uncomfortable as you reevaluate your perspectives on a plethora of social issues. It’s wonderful!!!! I’ve already played with multiple different groups of people since even though the question pool is the same, the responses of your friends vary, and it’s fun to discuss different answers when you’re equipped with the insight/perspectives of friends from previous games.

I really, really love playing this game, in spite of how emotionally taxing it is, because I miss deep talking with my friends a lot. Askhole provides a platform for engaging people in questions that probably wouldn’t even come up in our organic discussions!! I’ve learned so much about my friends and have grown so much closer to them within a few hours of intimate conversation.

Given, some of these questions are ridiculous, but most of them are interesting and great for prompting introspection. One example, “to what do you attribute to your success,” generated a lot of discussion since half of the group I was playing with immediately equated success to their admission to MIT, while the other half viewed it in a different light. We then contemplated how important getting into MIT was for us in the grand scheme of things, and our answers varied pretty drastically. When I did this with another group of people, which was composed of more upperclassmen, even fewer people contextualized success as getting into MIT. So…timely reminder that getting into college isn’t the be-all and end-all of things!

Askhole is my new favorite quarantine social activity. It covers all the important bases: talking to friends? Check. Getting closer to them as you learn things you never knew about them? Check. Discussing deeply uncomfortable subjects that make you assess your biases and past experiences in a new context and potentially may spur epiphanies about being problematic? Check!

haha jk

unless?

enjoy deep talking :)