Every person on the planet has a nature, a mode of being, preferences in his or her lifestyle that characterize the way he or she exists in the world.

One's nature is not something that lends itself to being succinctly described or surmised by a single attribute. For example, Sara likes to dress up in silly costumes and be written on in permanent marker when she's drunk. But that fact, though it may reveal clues to her underlying, suppressed feelings, does not say much about her true nature.

If only it were that simple.

In reality, it takes years of interaction, observation and introspection to even begin to grasp another person's true nature. Of course, upon meeting someone, most people formulate impressions based on what they see, hear and sense coming from the new acquaintance.

Unfortunately, these impressions are often skewed by a) the new acquaintance's efforts to either reinvent or embellish himself to show off for the new arrival, or b) the nature of the person forming the impression creating a bias, causing him or her to perceive the other in a convenient but perhaps inaccurate way.

At college, and particularly at large schools like Penn State, the average student meets new people every day. Sometimes the meeting is as superficial as a smile (or scowl) at a fellow building resident upon passing in the hallway. Sometimes it's a landmark introduction made between two former strangers by a mutual friend. Sometimes, for better or for worse, it may be something as intimate and tawdry as a one-night stand.

The fact that we are bombarded daily by so many meetings often numbs us of the significance and weight that these meetings might carry, and allows us to be negligent in the decisions we make in conjunction with them. I, for one, have on a number of occasions failed to recognize the potential conflict the juxtaposition of my nature with an inherently opposite one might cause. As I said before, you can't know someone's nature on contact -- but it wouldn't do any one of us harm to take a few clues from a person's actions and statements, and to keep our guard up.

Take the case of "the deli guy," a mumbling mess of tattoos and self-esteem issues from the start. It's my nature to try to help people that I perceive to be reaching out to me. This instinct overrode a very important defensive instinct in my dealings with him.

He told me at the very start of our friendship that he had a habit of initiating relationships that he subconsciously knew would fail and then freaking and bailing out on them. As I sat, clothed head to toe in Banana Republic, staring across the way at him in his dirty fatigues, ball bearings hanging out of either side of his nose, this announcement failed to strike a chord of alarm with me. When he would call me to "please" come over and then not offer me a ride home at 2 a.m., I still ignored the signs.

Each time, I talked him down from a state of aggravated alienation to a more amiable place. Every time he called me ranting nonsensically, I forgot to question myself as to whether the constant struggle to reconcile our different natures was worth it. In the end, of course, he followed his nature's call and freaked out on me inexplicably. If I'd ceased to fight the laws of nature and seen the word "incompatible" written on the wall, I would have saved myself a lot of wasted time and energy.

Purely platonic friendships are not immune to nature's musings, either. Throughout our lives we will encounter people who reach out to us in friendship -- and unwittingly bring us little other than strife. I'm convinced this is a consequence of conflicting nature.

For instance, you meet at a salsa dancing club event, and since you obviously both enjoy some of the same things, you mistake common interest for common nature. You like to drop by friends' houses unexpectedly to "surprise" them. She perceives that as an invasion of space and privacy. You go to Baptist church every Sunday and believe that everyone can be saved. She is an Atheist, but puts up with your reading "inspiring" psalms over the phone to her -- for a while.

You like to stay in, but are passive and meek. She likes to go out, and is overbearing and persistent. So she convinces you to go out, and you're miserable but too reluctant to say anything about it. Negativity builds, the so-called foundation of the too-quickly and haphazardly built friendship erodes, and spats break out. The drama begins, along with the push and pull of who's madder, who's more severely hurt, how you can make it up, who's not listening, who doesn't show an interest, who's too busy, and what can be done.

I say, sometimes the answer is nothing. I think that the choice to begin a relationship does not mean that you have to see it through. I think that "the deli guy" made a pro-active decision -- if a little rash -- based on his realization that the common ground we stood on was made of balsa wood, not rock, and that stepping off prematurely was a better way to go rather than enduring the fall of the break.

Am I encouraging you to cop out on your friends? If you feel stuck, unsatisfied and harassed as a result of their friendship, then yes. There's no need to fight Mother Nature. In the end, you will find that she's a true friend.