If you’re like me, you’ve heard someone tell a story about how they met their best friend on the first day of classes, when they happened to sit next to them and strike up a conversation. My belief in these kinds of fateful meetings led me to have incredibly high expectations of how easy it would be to make friends on my first day of university. I would finally meet someone with whom I could connect, someone who would be by my side throughout the next four years of good times that were surely ahead of us.
While I found a seat in my very first class of my university career my excitement built, and the room filled with new students from all different countries, cultures, and as it was 8 AM, varying degrees of consciousness. Eventually one of the only available seats left was the one next to mine. To be completely honest, I don’t even remember who sat next to me. They plunked themselves down, flipped open their laptop, and before I could say “hello” began scrolling down their Facebook feed for the entirety of the class. And so, my first attempt at creating a friendship that would last a lifetime was obliterated.
I kept my hopes up, vowing to myself that I would find the friends I was looking for at the remaining frosh week events. Having only been introduced to alcohol in my last year of High School, I was not what you would call a partier. However, I managed to find a few people on my floor who were in the same boat as me, and we decided to head out together to a floor that was rumoured to be hosting a party.
To make a long story short, I ended up being quite drunk locked in a common room while campus security questioned several other frosh about the contents of their water bottles as well as their age. I was only saved by the virtue of the fact that I had finished my drink and thrown it out five minutes prior.
For the first month of classes my life seemed to be a revolving door of people. I would study with someone or get coffee once or twice, and then the only time I heard from them would be a random Facebook post about exam stress, or how they’d hit a new low eating ramen noodles for breakfast.
Now going in to my third year, I have learned that friendships rarely happen instantaneously, and that the best way to create meaningful relationships, is to find something you’re interested in and go do it. While you’re doing activities that you enjoy, you’ll find yourself surrounded by others who share your interests, mindset, and goals. More often than not, these people are the friends who will support you through the rough times and be there to celebrate with you during the next four years of good times, which you surely have ahead of you.
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