It’s amazing how living so close to someone can affect your relationship with them. In high school, it would take me a week to practically learn a guy’s name, then another six months to get to know him, and then two to three years before I could call him a “true friend”. In University, after little more than a week, I’ve found, with one roomie in particular, we’ve become close and understanding friends with little effort. It’s great that we could become so close, and that he didn’t turn out to be one of those psycho roommates you see in horror movies.
However, for every good story, there’s usually a bad one in there too. Way back when in high school, I followed a weird trait with meeting certain (and only certain) people: I’d become fascinated with them in a totally non-sexual way, and want to be their friends. It would take a couple months before their image began to crack and I realized that they weren’t all that great a person. A terrible one even. I didn’t expect a moment like this to happen so soon in UBC, but who would have thought it could happen in a single day?
I met this really interesting—nameless – girl from a nameless place (Nowhere Land, yeah let’s go with that!). She acted very hip and urban, the kind of person I’d expected and hoped to meet in the strange world of college. We got along really well, and the next day we hung out at a party together, and had one of those great bonding conversations that is far too personal for a public blog.
Now I don’t want to be mean on the blog, so I won’t relate what happened next, but needless to say, the next day some things were said by this said person that wasn’t so nice. Suddenly, like a light switch going off, everything changed for me with her. I left her and her friends, carrying with me a sense of bitter disappointment and loneliness. Nice roller coaster ride.
So my verdict? Meeting people in college isn’t that much different than in high school; you’ll find some great ones, you’ll find some terrible ones, only now they listen to Radiohead and contemplate philosophy. Oh, and everything seems to happen in super speed. It’s a lot of fun, kind of dizzying, and a deep chasm when I take the time to look down. So, where do I meet my next friend?
Interesting — I’m glad to hear that you found a best friend in your roommate so soon! Those are always the most fun stories.
I do want to say that my experience of meeting and making friends over the past few years at UBC has been a little different to yours so far. I’m making this comment more for the benefit of other students who might not be so lucky to meet their new best friend in the first week of school. I certainly didn’t — in fact, although I met dozens of people and hung out with a lot of them, it took me many, many months to find truly good friends, or to feel comfortable enough around certain individuals to really open up. If anything, while I agree that you get to meet a lot more people all at once than ever before, making friends can be a much longer process (at least, the kind of friends who stay with you throughout the years; most of the people I spent time with in first year have long since dropped off my radar as we moved our separate ways).
I hope your luck still shines for you, though!
weeelll it’s hard to say “best friend” yet, but I’m glad i found someone I get along with so easily. And thank you for your advice! I’m sure I still have a long road before I find that person who i could truly call my “best of the best” freinds lol
The disillusionment happened to me too, except it was during Grade 12. Suddenly, because of what people said and did, their perfect shells began to crack, and I wanted nothing more than to get out and surround myself with new people.
I’ve met tons of new people now, but I still wonder how long will it be until their shells crack as well.
I know exactly what you mean, gr 12 is when everyone starts to get a little crazy haha
You’re right, that whole process of making friends and forming bonds goes at such a faster rate at university than it ever used to. I think it’s because we’ve (mostly) found the base of who we are, so it’s much easier to connect to like-minded people. There’s no expectations or perceptions like there used to be at high school, which stopped people, me being no exception, from making new friends. It’s such a liberating feeling.
Yeah, I’ve noticed everything, from classes, to days, to everything, has just jumped into hyperspeed while here, which is why every day feels like a week, and week like a year. But yeah, I seem to be able to find niches so much easier, and meet people who truly are like-minded