Senior Andrew Skinner started gathering subscribers for a personal listserv called “Do Things with Andrew” (which he abbreviates TWA) last fall. Since then, it’s grown to a group of more than 80, many of whom had no connection with each other whatsoever before this email list and its namesake brought them together. I’ve seen it grow and seen its fluxes and flows, but I never knew a thing about the ideas behind TWA until Andrew himself agreed to an interview about it.

This week, we’ll get the foundations of the group and some beautiful thoughts from its creator, who someone should seriously pick up to do a TED talk. Next week, we’ll hear Andrew sound off on cyborgs, campus politics, and the future of the TWA dynasty.

From here, I’ll only ask questions and, for the most part, will let him take over. He talks real good. If you vibe with what he’s saying and want to Do Things with Andrew yourself, just comment on this story on Facebook and you’ll get linked up.

What inspired you to start your listserv?

"Oh, wow, I have to like, think, fuck. [Laughs.] When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend who wasn’t really friends with my friends, they didn’t really get along, so I just started having these, like, picnics, ‘cause I wanted these two groups to mix more. It worked great. But man, I’ve got to work on this: Like, if you look at any great organization, they all have these great origin stories. First thing in the Bible, right? I need to make one of those.

Anyway, I started those, and they went great. When you get a group of people together, and none of them know each other, but they’re in this area of radical inclusiveness, they don’t know each other, so there’s some awkwardness, but that opens people up because they all share it. It brings out the best in people. Ideally, almost no one in the gathering knows any of the other people.

The other bit is that my life, I know so many people who are just desperate, all over the place. I don’t really have a core group. College is like that: You’re just bombarded constantly at UNC with thousands of people, and lots of them will come into your life quickly and leave sporadically, and that can leave you feeling confused and lonely. But it’s nice to have a group, and there are very few inclusive social opportunities that allow people to do that and be part of something and meet other people.

For me it’s really a magical experience to see all these people who are part of your life meet each other, to see all those people collide who aren’t part of any coherent community. I also just like saying to the world, hey, I’m your friend. If you need somebody, I’m here. That’s really what it’s about.

Another thing is, a lot of times I say the target audience is “adventurous introverts.” I’d sort of define an adventurous introvert as somebody who…shit. I don’t know how to define that. It’s kinda self-explanatory. But I’m an adventurous introvert.

Parties are, so to speak, my existential nightmare, ‘cause you’re surrounded by all these other people and you want to make a real human connection to them, but you’re surrounded by loud music and most people are really intoxicated, so it’s super difficult. A lot of people get into this trap in college where people have told us our whole lives that college is gonna be a ton of crazy parties and it’ll be great and there’s this big idea setup of what college is supposed to be.

But it can be really isolating, ‘cause that’s not quite so great, a lot of the time, in actuality, so you feel disappointed or kind of guilty because you’re not doing what college is supposed to be. So I wanted to start something as an alternative."

How’s your life changed since you started DTWA?

"So the other day, I was just watching the people at the potluck talking and joking, and we kinda opened up about a lot of stuff, lot of personal stuff, ‘cause we started talking about unfun facts about ourselves, which was just taking a lot of personal things about ourselves and turning them into funny stories.

Telling stories is something I want to see more in our society. We’ve lost a lot of that to impatient one-upsmanship. But I saw that moment, and it was perfect. That’s what it’s all about, is bringing people together.

Not about you, not about me, which sounds ironic because it’s got about the most egotistical name imaginable, but it’s not about that. The name is just novel, and it brings people in, ‘cause it’s unusual to have a personal listserv.

But the point is to bring people together and for them all to have a good time, ‘cause the best thing you can do as a human being is just generally to make other people’s lives better. And it’s really cool to see that. I love it."

[Note: The photo is not Andrew. It is a portrait of the late and great writer David Foster Wallace, who looks very much like Andrew.]