After a couple of weeks University is a chore. I knew before I arrived I wasn’t going to fit in and some people might call that defeatist but for me it was just a fact of life. People are intimidated by the wealth and privilege and some big institutions but as far as I could ascertain I was included in the strata that it was not deemed necessary to shun. Some of their fathers might have heard of my father, my dishevelled appearance was obviously codified as wealthy to them in some way; the faded chino’s from the correct retailer perhaps, the jeans not from Marks maybe. I drink in the eagle sometimes, I have a small house down the canal out of the city centre. I take part in no student activities although in my opening lecturers it is deemed important that we take some interest in the maths society here. I can’t work out if the professor is giving me a meaningful glance or if he is looking right through me. I also don’t care. The Archimedeans, I shower the name with contempt as a way of masking my fear and my feelings of inadequacy. I am still a teenager.

During the fresher’s squash I stand to the left of the stand and sip nervously from a plastic beaker of weak squash. I can see the maths society stand and the throngs of students in front of me plodding along. I have never looked at so many women, or are they girls? Do they become women in this institution? Is that a euphemism for sex? I will never flourish here.

I like to do problems based around Solitaire, finding the right sequence of actions that kind of things. On the coast in Dorset the games were endless, my sand cracked fingers fidgeting over the cards, the Formica table, caravan enclosed. When I was a child I used to wonder how to win every time, but you can’t win every time. My father used to tell me that.

There are literally thousands of people in this room, I estimate that more than 20% of them would have interesting insights into my mathematical programming problems with Solitaire, then at least 50% would be willing to discuss it with me anyway as to alleviate the crippling anxiety of seeming alone in a crowd of people. Painfully conscious that making friends is the most important thing, at least to those who have a meaningful understanding of what we are all doing here. The education is a footnote in the building of robust social networks. Beneath the surface, if you can identify the correct set of actions you can succeed. Trial and error or by design. The goal is for it to be harmonious, seamless. I start to count faces and categorize, creating potted histories of each individual as I go. Class divisions, gender, race stereotyping then just randomized assumptions; Abuse, grief, inadequacy or eating disorders, anything to give me a feeling of superiority, an edge over them in the sequence of social interactions that must eventually ensue, except the interactions aren’t happening. I just stand and the waves of possibility ebb in front of me. Depending on who I talk to, the choices I make in this second will define who I am for the rest of my life, omnidirectional possibilities, snaking forks through three dimensional maps. Later I will be able to correlate actual datasets using Facebook as my source but not now, not in this time, right now I am laying the bedrock for the algorithms, doing the gestational computations in my mind, watching the lines trace across the faces of the uninitiated.

“So I’m Frank.” Says a voice. I spin round and am confronted by an average looking 18-year-old man; nothing remarkable in any way, slightly skinny jeans but not skinny enough to be identified as a conscious fashion decision. His face neutral, lines around the eyes, lack of sleep? His backpack is hanging on one shoulder, which I suppose indicates at least a modicum of social awareness.

“Hello.” I say.

‘What?”

“I said Hello.”

“Right.”

The exchange hangs in the air as the hubbub of the hall reverberates around us. He takes a glance over my shoulder at the Archimedeans stand.

“So… maths?” Frank infers with an attempt at raising an eyebrow but really it’s just a widening of his eyes.

“Stats.” I reply.

“Cool.” He says.

“Not really.”

“No…no I guess not.” He says unsure as to weather this response constitutes unfriendliness. I am merely trying to invoke the lack of enthusiasm for anything that denotes the abstract concept of being cool. He takes a step closer to me and turns to face the crowd, as if trying to observe what I am seeing, after a time without turning to me he says “It’s all so… insurmountable isn’t it.”

“Yes, I think so.” I reply. I think this is when Frank and I become friends.

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