Schrödinger strangers - Part 3

Hi, I have social anxiety and cannot function properly in situations. To keep myself sane I make notes on people that I observe, their unique characteristics and quirks, things that make them, them.

Today’s subject is a guy I met during a hackathon. It was a 2 day hackathon, at another college. It was my first time staying away from home overnight without my family so obviously I couldn’t get myself to sleep.

The day passed by very slowly, and fatigue started to hit every team. All the initial enthusiasm and zeal to get things done and build a spectacular app slowly turned into stress and “Why isn’t the goddamn thing done already?”.

All except one guy who barely moved from his place. From the outside he was the total opposite of a tech bro. No obnoxious attitude, he just kept to himself. He barely talked to his own team, just worked on his laptop continuously.

When dinner was served everyone gave a huge sigh of relief and rushed to stuff their mouth and brain, a well needed rest after a whole day of coding. Again, everyone except this guy who almost had to be dragged out of his chair by his friends. He kept to himself, ate very little and had this habit of checking out people. It was very interesting to look at him looking at others. Was he interested in someone? Was he just judging his competition? Whatever it was he was good at it.

Night creeped in and energy levels dropped to nil, people were sleeping in shifts and trying to get that last feature done before sunrise. By late morning almost everyone was asleep except a few odd souls who had slept earlier in the night.

Again, everyone except that one guy. He was awake the whole night, typing away. When I went out to explore the campus at sunrise, that was the only time I saw him smiling, he was out for a run! His eyes looked tired but everything else screamed that he was an experienced athlete. This was not his first rodeo.

We didn’t make it to the top 10 so I dont know if his team won or not. The last I saw of him was during breakfast and while everyone walked like zombies, his gait was strong and he didn’t look like a man who was awake the last 48 hours.

Whether it was extreme self discipline or insane willpower, this guy was not the person you want to pull an all-nighter with.