Back-Row People

We're not all slackers

I recently went to my law school reunion, which got me thinking about my classmates and all those years I spent in classrooms and lecture halls, which then got me thinking about front-row and back-row people.

You know which you are. Unless, bafflingly, you are one of the masses who sat in the middle rows. And who are, I’m assuming—perhaps unfairly—to be normal and thus (to me) uninteresting. (Sincere apologies to my middle-row readers.)

Grapevines enjoying the view from the back row at Carter Mountain Orchards in Charlottesville - photo by author

But I digress. As an introvert, I am, unapologetically, a back-row person. Teachers and instructors who coaxed (or forced) me to move forward “to join in the conversation” meant well, but engendered acute discomfort. (As do rooms set up with seats in a circle or square, and thus no back row.) With no one behind me, I can relax and concentrate without the distraction of feeling eyes on the back of my head. (Classroom settings only, I’m as fond as the next person of a good seat at a performance.)

I posit that back-row people, excluding the slackers, process information differently. I suspect we are more independent, non-conformist, “out of the box” thinkers who seek the big picture, unlike my law school classmates whose compulsive hand-raising was so predictable that it spawned “Turkey Bingo” and the “Gage Gauge.” (In Turkey Bingo, the grid was filled out not with numbers but with the names of the inveterate hand-raisers. The “Gage Gauge” involved guessing, I believe, when and how many times Gage, who went on to enjoy professional success, would raise his hand.)

“New” entrance to the law school - photo by author

The introversion-extroversion trait that differentiates back-row from front-row people is obvious, but are there other factors at play? (Besides running late or being unprepared and/or hungover, the latter a not uncommon occurrence at my law school.) Are back-row people more creative and independent-minded? Or just terrified at being put in the spotlight? Although AI was happy to hallucinate an answer, actual studies focused primarily (and not surprisingly) on academic success. Which, predictably, gave a gold star to the front row-ers. And my searches failed to disgorge anything about where Steve Jobs or Bill Gates sat. But I’d bet that Steve, with his non-conformist views towards formal education, was a back-row person. (That is, until he dropped out.)

And so my curiosity goes unanswered as I enjoy life from the back row, relaxed in my chair, thinking my un-spoon-fed thoughts, and taking my notes. So, where do you sit — and why?

Always a fine view from the steps of the rotunda - photo by author