Ice Cream Social [Norms]

I would like to preface this with the fact that I did in fact pass my psychology class with a solid A grade. My tests and classwork were great, but my project idea nearly got me kicked out of my local mall- to no fault of my own!

How did this “nearly” happen? Allow me to explain.

For my senior year in high school, I took a college psychology class. If you have Mrs. Dunn for a psychology class, you are being taught by the admirable woman who had to witness my project and not judge me for it every day since then. Truthfully, the psychology course I took with her is by far one of my favorite classes I have ever taken.

At the end of the semester, we were assigned a project regarding social norms. The goal: break a social norm. What is a social norm? “Social Norms” are rules that people in a given society or group are expected to follow. If it is not within that realm of ‘normalcy’, it is breaking social norms.

Now, I certainly was not brave enough to do what some other students did in that class, like walking up to people in Walmart and taking selfies with them or sitting at a random table of strangers as they try to eat lunch. Oh contraire, I wanted to avoid direct confrontation as much as possible.

So, I donned my sister’s old giraffe Halloween costume and decided to walk around the mall while my friend videotaped me. Note that it was after Thanksgiving- not Halloween- at the time of this endeavor. The only issue is that as soon as I set out on my anti-social anti-normal experience, security caught sight of me. To this day, I’m not entirely sure what was so suspicious about a 17-year-old girl wearing a juvenile giraffe costume, but I’m sure there must have been a purpose. The worst part: we didn’t even get our fast-walking, awkwardly distant chase by mall security on camera; quite honestly, I’m glad we didn’t, as I’m sure the security guard would not take kindly to being recorded.

Eventually, when we realized this security guard was really just not giving up (kudos to him for such determination and endurance), I decided we needed something a little more reactive from the general population instead of just this one singular security guard.

After changing out of my costume and into my much more stylish sweatpants, I start after my Plan B. First, I select my target who, ironically, had taken the same psychology class a year before me and, thus, was aware of the social norm project’s existence. He did not, luckily for us, know it was our goal at the time.

The scene went something like this:

I walked up to the cashier and ordered a single vanilla ice cream cone. After paying for my delicious treat, I stepped to the side and waited. The target, the poor sap, strode confidently over with my ice cream, beaming a proud smile over the perfectly crafted cone. He held it out towards me, and I did it; I grabbed a fist full of the ice cream, forgoing the choice of grabbing the cone as was expected. I felt somewhat guilty as he quickly tried to catch the cone, but it was too late. He stared in absolute horror as the ice cream cone was crushed in my grasp.

I managed to thank him politely before sashaying away as gracefully as I can in my way-too-short-for-my-long-legs sweatpants and ice cream dripping down my sleeve. Before I reach the table where my friend sits recording, he calls out, “Is this for the social norms project?”

Yes. Yes, it was.

Now that I’ve over-explained my dramatic brush with deviating from our society’s “normalcy”, why am I discussing it now– over two years later?

Well, aside from hopefully giving you a reprieve from work and/or school, I find myself noticing our new “normal” that has been brought on by the pandemic. For instance, wearing masks in grocery stores, in-person college classes, or in most other settings has become sort of a social norm. To be clear, the mask-wearing itself is technically written as a governor-mandated guideline, but people being aware of others’ health and wearing a mask with the purpose of protecting others as common courtesy is certainly a widely-accepted expectation in society nowadays and, thus, a new social norm.

Sure, not everyone is thrilled about it and not everyone follows it, but as someone who works in customer service, I see a lot of customers either wearing a mask or, if they aren’t, they apologize and stand 6 feet away from me without me having to say a word.

In summary, it’s fascinating how fast some people adjust to a newly-established ‘rule’, even if they do it begrudgingly. Additionally, if the guy I targeted for my social norms project reads this, I’m terribly sorry I ever put you through that confusion; it haunts me to this day, as you can tell from the first 619 words of this article. However, I can at least assure you that the ice cream did not go to waste afterward!