Emily Hoeven | Elevator pitch

Growing Pains | The importance of acknowledging one another

By Emily Hoeven 09/20/16 12:00am

I dread waiting for the elevator in Penn’s high rise buildings almost as much as I dread the actual elevator ride itself.

I dread standing in the awkwardly clustered group of people waiting for the elevators, all of whom make sure to maintain a certain distance from everyone around them and constantly look downward, faces buried in their phones.

I dread that moment when the elevator doors open and everyone streams inside, pushes their respective buttons, and then immediately pulls out their phones, pretending to be absolutely riveted to their screens. Yet most phones don’t even get service in the elevator. Haven’t we all entered an elevator with someone talking on the phone, who, as the elevator ascends, starts saying, “Hello? Can you hear me?” Haven’t we all rushed into incredibly full elevators at 9:50 a.m. in order to make our 10 a.m. class, and found ourselves watching the person in front of us desperately try to refresh their Facebook feed or send a text, but to no avail?

Why don’t we talk to each other? Why can’t we seem to find it within ourselves to say “Hi” or “How are you” or “Have a good night” to the people around us, even if we don’t know them? Why can’t we put our phones away, for approximately the two minutes and 20 seconds it takes to wait for the elevator to get to our floor, and lift our heads up? Why do we go to such great lengths to avoid eye contact with those around us?

Because, you may say, I’m not getting on the elevator to make friends. Nor do I want to talk to anyone. I’m tired, I’m in a hurry, I’m not in the mood, I just want to get from Point A to Point B. And I can put this 20 seconds in the elevator to good use. I can read that book I downloaded onto my phone. What’s the point of making small talk with, or making eye contact with, the other people on the elevator? It’s too faked. Too forced. Not meaningful. Not normal. It’s more uncomfortable to acknowledge the other people on the elevator than it is to pretend they’re not there.

This sort of “elevator culture” is not particular to Penn, nor even to college campuses, but it helps illuminate why it can be easy to feel lost in the shuffle at Penn. It is easy to feel like you are just another person being swept along on the tide, on the pilgrimage each morning down Locust to Huntsman or Williams. Just another person riding the elevator that is ceaselessly going up and then going all the way back down all hours of the day.

In the midst of this ceaseless flow, of people, of machines, of information — it is so refreshing to suddenly be halted in your tracks, to be stopped and reminded of your existence, to be acknowledged by another person. There’s no inherent problem with being anonymous, but there is a problem if we go out of the way to avoid interacting with others.

I cannot count the number of times I have been sweating profusely in the elevator trying to balance bags and boxes and no one noticed because no one getting on the elevator actually deigned to look at each other. But the other day, when I walked into the elevator carrying a giant Ikea box, the girl who got on with me asked, “Do you need any help with that?” And a couple of weeks ago, when I got on the elevator, I smiled at the girl inside. When I got off, she said, “Have a good night.” “Thank you,” I said, and meant it sincerely. “You too.”

What would happen if we embraced the 20 seconds of limbo in the elevator, if we were able, for 20 seconds, to reconcile our constantly busy selves to the idea of doing nothing, of giving up our intuitive, infinite thumbing of phone screens? What if we were able, for 20 seconds, no matter how uncomfortable it feels, to just be? And in so being, recognize the other beings around us with a “Hi,” or a smile, or simply with eye contact?

We may be in the elevator with complete strangers, but they live on the same campus as us, walk down the same sidewalks as we do and are trying to do the best they can, just as we are. And it seems to me that the existence of that connection — however minuscule, however major — ought to be acknowledged.

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