The first thing I saw when I entered my dorm room at Sanford Hall last year was my roommate, we'll call him The Zellmenator. I was a bit taken aback because his eyes were glued to his computer screen, he barley acknowledged my presence. After a while this type of behavior didn't surprise me in the slightest, it did however create interesting reactions from friends that I brought to the room. Every time I brought someone new to the room i would introduce them to The Zellmenator and every time he could hardly bring himself to look away from his computer screen for one second to greet a new stranger. At times I found this amusing, at others I found it quite maddening.
At around eight months infants begin to display stranger anxiety a phenomenon where babies exhibit extreme fear and other negative reactions when met with a stranger. The funny thing is two months earlier the same baby would have been over joyed to meet a new person. Stranger anxiety might serve as an evolutionary defense mechanism because at eight months infants begin to learn to crawl on their own, and maybe get into trouble. This anxiety might help to protect them from dangers like unknown adults. Behavior like this gets worse until 12 to 15 months of age and declines as life goes on.
So my question is why would a seemingly fully developed college freshman show such strong signs of stranger anxiety? I'm sure the Zellmenator had meeting strangers his whole life and I would think that he'd be able to realize there is nothing to fear, because after all according to the research he should have lost this fear years ago. What could be an explanation for his fear of strangers at Sanford? Was it just the overwhelming rush of the socialization that happens during freshman year or is there a psychological explanation for his reactions to new people?
Stranger Anxiety
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The stranger anxiety into later years in life depends on their experiences when they were younger. If they have been hurt, abused, or betrayed by many people throughout their lives, they may develop a sort of PTSD and a natural fear of people.
Traumatizing social experiences are, in my opinion, one of the reasons why people may experience stranger anxiety into their later lives. They may prevent us from developing mentally past that stage in our lives, or their traumatizing effect may just condition us to react in a negative way with social stimulation. Maybe your roommate had it, and the only way he could deal with it was to continue to glue himself to the computer. Each person has ways of coping with stranger anxiety.
A Japanese Manga I read called Soul Eater has a character who has been shut up alone all her life by her evil witch of a mother. As a result, when she is rescued by the heroes she is quite fearful when she meets everyone around her. This results in a rather comical scene where she cowers in a corner or behind a main character. However, I can see the parallels it draws with the social anxiety you talk about in your post.
This wasn't clear in your post but did your roommate only exhibit this behavior when strangers entered the room? Once he got to know you, did he stop the behavior? If he didn't stop the behavior, there may be some other explanation that stranger anxiety.
I agree with Sarah, you are probably accurate in saying that the "Zellmenator" has some stranger anxiety. However, if the signs of his stranger anxiety don't diminish over time, then it is very possible that he is just an extremely extraverted person, and he simply does not want to meet new people.
I can relate to this as when I would go to one of my friends rooms his roommate reacted the same exact way to any of us that did not live there. We would greet him and exchange some formalities but that was the extent of the relationship. I'm not sure if it was stranger anxiety, or if he just really did not want to meet new people. He seemed to be your average kids, but would not open up to anyone he hadn't met or hardly to his own roommates.
There could be a psychological explanation to his behavior to meeting new people. He could also be extremely shy and introverted and just not want to make a fool out of himself by saying something. It's interesting that babies develop a stranger anxiety around eight months of age. Every baby that I have met have in some way been afraid of strangers at first, but then have opened up to them later. It's strange that this doesn't occur until eight months, seeing as when that is when they can start walking, then they can get away. However to me it seems like it would make more sense for them to be afraid of strangers when they can't get away.
I think that your roommate may be exhibiting social issues more so than stranger anxiety. Although I feel those two things go hand-in-hand. Many people have issues in meeting new people and are very introverted. Your roommate may just have no interest in socializing with strangers. Regarding your post, he could have anxiety around strangers.
Poor Zellmenator! I feel like this isn't really something that is that uncommon. Meeting new people is super uncomfortable for some people. I too am wondering if he was like this to you after he got used to you, or if he was always sort of stand-offish??
How did your roommate act when it was just you two in the room alone? Was he still shy and un-talkative with you as well? My freshman roommate from last year was somewhat similar to yours, he was quiet and pretty shy, but once he knew you for a good while he would warm up and be more sociably. He is also the complete opposite on weekends and is a pretty good partier. So it is almost two extremes in on person. I think that most people are a little shy about meeting new people for the first time, but shouldn't be afraid by the time they reach college.
The Zellmenator was a random roommate, however we had another roommate who was the Zellmenators friend from Burnsville high school. Also the Zellmenator never opened up to anyone on our floor and according to our other roommate thats how he has always been, content to be alone. Our floor was also really close, which might have pushed the Zellmenator even further from everyone. When it was just us two in the room his anxiety was a bit lessened but all conversation was completely forced and he always in front of his computer. He would also go home every weekend and never went any parties. He had people over once and they seemed to be quite sociable compared to the Zellmenator. The Zellmenator also seemed to have trouble talking to his mom because whenever she called he would just give one word answers and gave a sigh of release when he got off the phone.
He definitely had some form of stranger anxiety, but here was more to it because he seemed anxious around people he was well acquainted with. I guess the Zellmenator is just true introvert because human connection was never something he sought after, it was always shoved in his face
This is a very interesting post. I think that perhaps because it was the first day of college, a lot of people might have been shy or nervous about meeting new people. The fact that the behavior continued might suggest a nervousness of meeting new people or perhaps the habit of not turning away from the screen to meet someone had been too strongly established further into the year.
It seems like this is a prevalent case for many freshmen college students with a random roommate (I'm assuming he was random). However, I simply think this is just a case of differing personalities. Not trying to buy too much into stereotypes, I imagine that if you go to MIT, the Zellmenator's response would be seen as normal, and your more sociable,down to earth response to meeting someone new would be seen as weird.