The rules of chains

Everyone loves Harris parties. This is a documented scientific fact, supported by a wealth of empirical evidence. By which I mean, of course, that Harris has essentially no redeeming value. The loud music damages your hearing, any calories you burn off by dancing are immediately replaced by empty booze calories, and the all in-the-moment drunken excitement about hooking up with someone pales in comparison to the immense awkwardness of the day after. We all know this. Yet we all still go. Hell, you probably still have the stamp from the last Harris party on the back of your wrist, you dirty hippy. All of this irrational Harris-related excitement is quintessential to the atmosphere of Grinnell, and no party embodies the gratuitous sketchiness of Harris more than last weekend’s Chains of Love party.

The premise is simple. Pick two people you (for some reason) think need to spend more time together. E-mail these names to an account, see if they accept an anonymous chain, and if all goes well, they get handcuffed (“screwed”) together at the party. On the good end of the spectrum, this can lead to people being chained to their extra special super best friends and having adorable platonic dance parties, or to two individuals with tremendously obvious sexual tension finally getting over their insecurities and having a practice session for 100 days, as it were. On the more negative end, this leads to people being chained to their worst enemy or to some random person they may or may not have once had a History class with. These malicious chains tend to lead to excess drinking, or even worse, really awkward situations in which your chain is making out with someone else’s chain, leaving you unable to do anything but stand off to the side, making idle chit-chat with your chain’s make-out partner’s chain. And that connection is not nearly enough of a common bond to facilitate the creation of a real friendship. Seriously.

As such, perhaps it is time to make a series of rules of chaining etiquette, so as to save future generations the pain and humiliation of a really uncomfortable chain.

The first rule of proper chaining etiquette is to make sure you actually know who you are chaining together. Many people on campus have similar names. As such, it is never a bad idea to pull up Stalkernet to double-check your choices. Your friends will thank you when you manage to actually chain them to their crushes rather than to Rusty K or Darcy, the pizza lady.
The second rule is that unrequited affection is not sufficient grounds for a chain. Even if your friends are creepy people who don’t mind being exposed for the stalkers they are, it will still probably be really awkward if they get chained to that one guy who works in the dining hall who has really shiny hair. Not even the bounciest hair can substitute for a complete lack of conversational topics. Nor should you assume that, just because the girl down your hall is always talking about how hot a certain football player is, that they have any amount of common ground or basis for spending the evening together. Clues that such chains might be a bad idea often come in subtle signals, such as the fact that she only ever refers to the fellow by his jersey number or vaguely descriptive nicknames such as Buff-o or Sexy Rexy.

The third rule is that chains should not be a venue for proposing riddles to people. That is, do not chain people together who have never met simply because you happen to know of some really insignificant commonality they happen to have. No one wants to spend all night asking stupid questions in an effort to figure out whether they and their chain had a goldfish with the same name when they were seven, or whether their high schools had the same vaguely racist mascot.
And finally, the fourth, and most important, rule about chains etiquette is that these rules really only apply when you are considering chaining me to someone. Honestly, I would have a much better time at chains if I had the opportunity to see everyone else in really awkward situations.