Humans of Prospect: Mia Philippas

In my creative writing class, we were assigned to interview a classmate using The 36 Questions That Lead to Love article published by the New York Times. At first, I was apprehensive. Not only did I not know anyone in my class well enough to feel comfortable partnering with them, but I did not feel that the exercise would be beneficial. I quickly found out how wrong I was. As I interviewed my friend Mia, I began to learn about parts of her personality that I had never noticed before. My first question was basic: “Would you ever want to be famous and why?” She answered quickly saying, “I wouldn’t want to be famous, like a celebrity, but I might want to become a celebrity stylist or something, ya know?” This showed me early on that she might desire fame, but not for anything superficial. If she was to be famous, she’d want to be so because she is good at her work. Already, I started to gain a new respect for her.

Next, I asked her what an ideal day would look like for her. She thought for a moment, then replied, “I’d want to wake up around ten in the morning, ya know, a reasonable time, and then I’d go out to breakfast and spend the rest of the day at the pool or beach.” I imagine many people might have a similar answer, but again, her response showed me something new about her: she valued taking time for herself. I believe that to be very admirable as sometimes it’s hard to just relax and have a good time the way you want to. As it has been something I’ve struggled with, to put myself first, I was inspired by her ideal day being about rest and relaxation. I definitely could learn a lot.

My final questions revolved around the idea of friendship and sentimentality. After having interviewed her for a while, I thought I was starting to better understand the person she was on the inside. She said, “I think friendship is about trust and loyalty. They’re not people who are going to stab you in the back or be mean to you. They’ll just, like, love you and you can tell secrets and be stupid together.” In my mind, she basically summed up friendship perfectly. They never will intentionally hurt you, they know the deepest things about you, and you never feel uncomfortable around them.

As you can see, after just a quick interview, I was able to learn a lot more about Mia’s personality and opinions. I found that this exercise in fact was beneficial, not just to my writing, but to my growing skills in building relationships. You can’t always judge a book by its cover, and I learned that valuable lesson today.