Bruin Walk is one of the most important and idiosyncratic features of our campus, and it can be a catalyst for you to join clubs that could really shape and improve your college career. But occasionally (Mondays), you aren’t quite in the mood to be hounded by everything with a Greek letter in it, so it’s important to know how to avoid the flyerers when today just isn’t your day to be screamed at and fanned with neon-colored papers.
1. Take the path next to Bruin Walk with the bike racks
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I/I took the one less travelled by/And that has made all the difference.” Great advice, Robert Frost! Right next to the infamous Bruin Walk is another path filled with bike racks and no flyerers. If Bruin Walk were a giant dragon, then this alternate path is a giant sign hanging around its neck that says, “my weak spot is my stomach please shoot me there with your arrows I have no resistance to it and can do nothing about it.” Flyerers still have not discovered this alternate path (shhhhh…) so it’s completely safe to walk through it without fear of accidentally joining an engineering fraternity.
2. Cut through the student store and Ackerman
You know those days where it seems you would do almost anything to avoid human contact for even seven seconds? At UCLA, you have that opportunity. Cutting through the student store, then walking through Ackerman, will allow you to completely circumscribe all contact with flyerers by adding minutes onto a portion of your walk to class which would have otherwise taken but a handful of seconds. Is it worth it? Well, that depends on if you’ve registered for Dance Marathon.
3. Set yourself on fire and run through the middle of Bruin Walk screaming “ahhh I’m on fire”
While it’s true that flyerers need to get their club/message out to as many people as possible, they know they can’t get to everyone. They’re people too, and aren’t going to put themselves in an extremely awkward situation if they can avoid doing so. So no way are they going to approach the kid who is clearly on fire and in excruciating pain and try to hand him a flyer! It would be rude, and while many clubs on campus are very diverse, many do not tend to accept people who are currently on fire anyway.
4. Call upon a nation of eagles, Lord of the Rings style, and have them carry you to class
Wasn’t it funny how the eagles always came in during the plot of the Lord of the Rings when they were needed most? Who’s to say this can’t happen to you? If you see a group of people with clipboards right by that entrance to Bruin Walk, extend both hands to the sky and yell out a frightening and chilling “CAAWWW” until an entire nation of eagles picks you up and carries you past the flyerers.
5. When you are handed a flyer, hand it right back to them, touch them lightly on the arm, look into their eyes, and walk away
Ok, I will admit this won’t get you out of Bruin Walk completely. But if you’re tired of having more flyers than you can hold in your hand, what your parents always told you to do when you didn’t want something still holds true today! Simply hand the flyer back to them, place your hand on their arm, and softly gaze into their eyes, as if you were secretly their father who abandoned them due to circumstances beyond his control many, many birthdays ago. They’ll have no choice but to smile and let you move on with your day.
6. When they ask you if want to support their cause or join their club, just tell them that you’re a '90s kid and that they wouldn’t understand.
Not interested in the environment but don’t want to turn someone down? Don’t want to learn how to Salsa dance but afraid of saying “no”? Just tell the person offering you the flyer, “I’m a '90s kid...you just wouldn’t understand!” and walk right on by. You’re from the '90s, and thus the way you perceive and interpret physical and psychological phenomena is different from everyone else in the world. By extension, you are inherently excused from anything and everything... they just don’t understand! This strategy, however, falls apart if the person offering you the flyer is also from the '90s. Which, admittedly, in 2015, at a university filled with 18-22 year olds, is likely.
7. If someone hands you a flyer, drop to the ground and do 25 pushups and 30 crunches.
Flyerers don’t want to waste a lot of time on each person, so if they try to give you a flyer and you’re on the ground doing 25 pushups and 30 crunches, they’re not gonna go too much out of their way to reach all the way down and hand it to you after your set. They’ll move on with their lives. You, however, are flyer-less and on your way to a great chest and killer abs.
8. Take the pit of an avocado, sprinkle a dash of cinnamon over it, microwave it for 50 seconds, wrap it in a damp paper towel, and hold it in your mouth as you walk through Bruin Walk
Science has done some pretty cool things, but did you know that you can become invisible now? With just these few DIY steps, you can Frodo Baggins your way through any crowd without anyone noticing! When you hear about all the amazing opportunities your friends took advantage of to get involved on campus, you’ll just smile, shake your avocado at them, and think to yourself, “if only they knew.”
9. Just be yourself
It’s the best advice there is. If you want to achieve anything in life, even if it is being antisocial and rude to people who are just doing their jobs with enthusiasm, you can do it by just taking a moment to look at who you really are, and just being that person to the best of your ability. Anything is possible.
