Before signing your lease, make sure to read the fine print on the people you may be living with
Aside from obtaining a higher education through post-secondary institutions, university can be considered to be a time when students gain their independence - especially if they were to move out of their childhood home.
The adult responsibilities of grocery shopping and doing your own laundry finally begin, and we aren't able to rely on our parents anymore. Moving away from home also creates opportunities for character-building as students may need to live with a variety of individuals who may be unfamiliar to them.
With many student leases coming to an end and house-hunting season in full swing, it's no surprise that many of us may be reflecting on our prior housemate experience.
Whether it's your first time house-hunting as a student or your last, it's important to know that the people you will be sharing a home with have the power to make you feel part of a second family, or despise every moment of your academic year.
Don't get me wrong, not all housemates make there are always positive moments with housemates that can overshadow the annoyance you experience. Yes, you may fight about them always stealing your food, even when you write your name on the container. However, at the end of the day, when they need advice, you're always more than happy to talk with them about whatever troubles you.
I would say these are the best kinds of housemates. Although you may have to remind each other to take your laundry out of the dryer machine because it's been sitting there for a few days, they are motivational and comforting. These types of housemates make you miss home a little less.
On the other hand, we have the housemates that make you regret moving to a post-secondary institution so far from home.
Although no one intends to be an unfavourable housemate, we don't always get along with everyone we meet.
At such a diverse university, it's no surprise that our housemates were raised differently from us.
However, this often leads to conflict within the house. Someone may have to pick up the slack or provide constant reminders for everyone to pull their weight within their house. There may be an unfair division of household chores or overall your personalities don't match causing other lifestyle conflicts.
It's not favourable to live with people who you cannot agree with on simple things such as buying house supplies or are inconsiderate of your preferences like being excessively loud or passive-aggressive in the house group chat.
Elements such as these can break your university experience because you become miserable within a space where you are spending the majority of your time. The energy should be welcoming. You shouldn't be mentally exhausted anytime you think of heading back to your room. By experiencing these negative feelings, we begin to associate school with the unpleasant situations we constantly experience with our housemates.
Overall, we either get really lucky when gambling for housemates or we get placed into situations that make us regret moving out of our childhood homes.
Although I don't think there's a way we can avoid this completely, there are some preventative measures we can take to avoid this even before the lease is signed.
For example, creating a group of people to rent an entire house with you rather than looking to rent a room for yourself alone ensures that you personally know your future housemates. This can help avoid conflict as you may have better insight into their personality, lifestyle and their living preferences. If this doesn't work for you, you could also look for parts of houses to rent like the basement where you would only need to convince one other friend to move in with you.
It is very important to know who you are living with before you sign the lease.
In the event that you are living with random people, set house rules that accommodate everyone's lifestyle in some capacity and remember to hold mutual respect. At the end of the day, you are tied together by a lease. If this still doesn't work, find some trusted friends to laugh about these issues with and think about seeking other alternative living solutions next year.
It’s the little things and experiences that lay the groundwork for connection with others
C/O @british library
What is it, exactly, that bonds us to others?
For many students, we find a connection to those around us through school. Whether it be the people that we meet during Welcome Week, in classes, through clubs or through mutual acquaintances, it’s safe to say that there’s ample opportunity to make connections in your time at McMaster University.
But what exactly separates your best, lifelong friends from the random dude whose contact is still in your phone from your first-year chemistry class?
But what exactly separates your best, lifelong friends from the random dude whose contact is still in your phone from your first-year chemistry class?
I’d beg to argue that it’s a third thing. Mutual, shared points of connection between people that bond us in joint wonder. For some, our connection through school is a third thing. For others, the third thing is a sport, the arts or an experience. Whatever it may be, it’s our third things that truly create lasting relationships.
Now, let me give credit where credit is due. The idea of a third thing isn’t exactly mine.
I recently reconnected with an acquaintance from high school who shared the same set of lived experiences that I did but still managed to seldom intersect with my life. We reconnected through a class discussion in breakout rooms, as people do in Zoom university. We lived adjacent but separate lives in a high school of 1,200 people, but our paths finally crossed in a university with a population of 30,000. What are the odds?
We instantly clicked. I think we’d spoken a total of once before — if that? But we were instantly on the same wavelength. Our conversation quickly veered to speaking about our high school experiences and even though we had hardly crossed paths then, our experiences were astonishingly similar.
We reminisced about how absurdly hyper-competitive our high school experience was, with our academically driven group of peers. We joked that the most often used pickup line in those halls was “so, what’s your average?” We laughed at how the less sleep you got, the bigger the flex. We agreed about how you get a choice of two of the following three: good grades, good health or a good social life.
These were things that we just thought were acceptable at the time. It was a school environment that perpetuated hustle culture. Where to be the best, you had to work the hardest and grind the most. It was stifling and absurd. I realize now that it was one of the only things that connected me to my friends at the time.
As we chatted in our breakout room from the comfort of our bedrooms in our hometown of Ottawa, we discovered a shared love of reading. She shared with me this beautiful piece of prose that we both connected to instantly.
It was a piece by Donald Hall, called The Third Thing. Hall wrote it at his wife’s bedside, as she died from leukemia. Throughout the piece, he describes this concept of the titular third thing: a singular idea or point of connection between yourself and another person.
“Most of the time [my wife and I’s] gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture of contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention . . . John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly,” wrote Hall.
“Most of the time [my wife and I’s] gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture of contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention . . . John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly.”
Donald Hall
Ironically enough, The Third Thing became our third thing, for a moment. As was our shared love of reading and inspiration we drew from literature.
For those at our high school, we agreed, their third thing was school itself. By no means do I want to invalidate sharing the connection of school and education with friends and colleagues. However, we both found that we’d lost that connection with our peers. It was the first time I realized that I’d begun to fall out with those that I used to call my best friends, as our third thing disappeared.
By losing that third thing, we had nothing left with so many of our old friends. It was the only point of connection that we truly had. Without the pressures and stress and competition, the connections fell apart. What’s left of a friendship when there’s nothing to bond over?
But with one connection gone comes the opportunity to strengthen what’s left. With some of my friends, our third thing is screaming Hamilton lyrics at the top of our lungs on road trips. Midnights spent loitering around suburbs. A mutual hatred of the existence of nickels. A crushing obsession with Breath of the Wild. Crocs as our footwear of choice. The list goes on and on.
But with one connection gone comes the opportunity to strengthen what’s left. With some of my friends, our third thing is screaming Hamilton lyrics at the top of our lungs on road trips. Midnights spent loitering around suburbs. A mutual hatred of the existence of nickels. A crushing obsession with Breath of the Wild. Crocs as our footwear of choice. The list goes on and on.
Each and every third thing brings us closer together. These small moments, ideas and figments of friendships past keep us going strong.
As a first-year student, I know it’s more difficult than ever to meet others right now. Getting to know people can be awkward and uncomfortable in a normal year, let alone in the midst of a pandemic.
But I assure you, third things are there and ever-present. I’ve found third things with newfound online friends in the form of our mutual shared experience of writing for the Sil, which turned into joking over a professor’s love of Animal Crossing. I’ve found them in a mutual more-than-dislike of online schooling, turned into a love of musical theatre, turned into a discussion on choosing favourite basketball players based on their wholesome-ness. I’ve found a third thing in the poem The Third Thing itself.
Please, I urge you to find a third thing and hold it close. Hold to it for dear life and never let it go once you find it.
Reflections on accompanying loved ones in pain
By: Serena Habib, Contributor
cw: Mentions of self-harm and mental illness
In The Vampire Diaries, the vampires had an inner mechanism called a “humanity switch.” This allowed them to turn off any emotions that made them human so they could completely and carelessly follow their desires.
While I am grateful for my sense of empathy every single day, I sometimes wish I had a little knob I could turn to decrease the pain love brings when people around me are hurting.
While I am grateful for my sense of empathy every single day, I sometimes wish I had a little knob I could turn to decrease the pain love brings when people around me are hurting.
However, empathizing with others allows us to build connections and make a difference in the lives of people around us.
In an interview with Self magazine, Gottman Relationship Institute Co-Founder Julie Schwartz Gottman said that a person’s ability to empathize with others is what makes friendships last.
Psychologists Daniel Goreman and Paul Ekman outline three forms of empathy: cognitive empathy, the ability to understand another person’s perspective; emotional empathy, the ability to share the feelings of another person; and compassionate empathy, which allows us to understand the other person and moves us to take action to help them.
But what happens when your friend has been suffering severely for years from a mental illness? You can see from their perspective, you are agonizing in their pain and you have already tried everything you can do to help, but it doesn’t feel like it makes a difference.
I am scared. I am tired. I dream about her dying and I awake to her messages about how they are hurting themselves. Yet, if my friend was dying from cancer, I would stay with her until their dying day. How is it any different with a mental illness?
I am scared. I am tired.
The definition of love as understood in our society can be summed up by the famous Bible passage from 1 Corinthians. I think about that quote when I think about our friendship.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
I am being patient and I am being kind. I do not want to be friends with anyone else. I do not think I am a better friend. I am not prideful about what I have done in the friendship for I know we have helped one another.
“It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” I try not to be angry, but it enrages me to see people suffering so gravely due to circumstances they cannot control.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” I am grateful for the honesty in our relationship and I want to be there as a listening ear. Our friendship was built upon rawness and mutual support.
“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” I always refrain from saying things that will be triggering or telling my friend how much this is hurting me because she already feels guilty for it. I do not give up and I never will give up on her being okay.
I always get excited at little glimmers of hope when she messages me about recovery or when we text about mundane things all day, but then I am dejected when the illness re-emerges and I once again see myself losing my best friend.
I get swept up in this whirlwind of pain and hope and confusion and I feel like I am trapped by the friendship that has brought me so much life and liberation.
I get swept up in this whirlwind of pain and hope and confusion and I feel like I am trapped by the friendship that has brought me so much life and liberation.
But then I realize that friendship goes both ways. I am not being honest with myself or patient with myself. I am expecting myself to do everything perfectly and blaming myself if anything goes wrong.
I need to follow these rules for myself. I need to be honest when I need time to put on my oxygen mask so we can both make it through these tumultuous times. Seeing as I can’t flip a switch to make this change, I’m not quite sure how to do this, but I am working on it.
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“What are you doing next year?”
As graduation looms over the graduating class of 2016, we are confronted with this question asked by friends and family. For some, the answer is straightforward — I’m going to graduate school or I have a job lined up. But for many the answer is barely known, and the future consists of silhouettes you can scarcely make out. Throughout our lives and especially in our time at McMaster, we’ve all gone through momentous periods of change, where we’ve matured and begun the process of becoming a functioning adult. But now it seems like none of it compares to what’s coming next after we throw our graduation caps into the air.
For many, graduation will be the first time that our lives are not following a linear narrative, where we’ll be tossed out into the job market with our student debt, where we have to look for a place to rent and where we have to finally learn to do our own taxes. I’ve been told that it’s not easy, and as someone going through this same process, I don’t have comforting words to say, except that we should approach it with optimism and excitement. If we have to go through this period of transition, we might as well try to make it fun.
Haven’t spoken at length about graduation with quite a few of my friends, one thing I noticed was that some jaded people approach graduation with disappointment and cynicism. I’ve heard many variations of the “I’m going to graduate and wipe my ass with my Bachelor of Arts because that’s all it’ll be good for.” To these folks I want to say that you shouldn’t discredit everything you’ve learned in your years at McMaster. It may not have been the key to a job and adulthood as promised, but it was not for naught. Beyond your academic growth, think of the relationships you’ve made, all the things about the world that you’ve learned. Without my time at McMaster, I would be blissfully unaware of what intersectionality means, and still subscribe to an overly simplistic and insufficient understanding of oppression. University made you a better person.
Was university what I expected? Not really. I was told that I’d make lifelong relationships here, and while there are a few people I love dearly, the truth is that I probably won’t talk to a majority of the people I met at Mac once we go our separate ways back to where we’re from. In the first year after graduation, visiting Facebook and LinkedIn will be difficult as you see where all your friends are going and you feel the need to compare yourself and see how you stack up on an arbitrary scale. You won’t be in the same place anymore, all working towards the exams in April.
On top of all of this, there’s the usual deluge of assignments and tests due in March, as well as the realization that you’re going through a lot of lasts: last midterm, last formal, last coffeehouse. It’s a difficult time, but you’ve already made it this far.
There’s no two ways about it; we’re leaving a community that was probably the most understanding and accepting. You’ll never experience this again. But like Dr. Seuss said, “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
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When it comes to texting, there are two kinds of people: those who reply right away, and those who don’t. I’m a pretty strong advocate of the former. I like to think replying in a timely manner, particularly when someone needs something from you, is the courteous thing to do. Sometimes, however, that isn’t the case.
As much as I hate the archetypical teenager who’s glued to their phone in literally every family movie ever, it used to be a fairly accurate representation of me. I had a friend who lived on the other side of Canada, and since visiting each other was out of the question, our favourite form of communication was through iMessage. We loved talking to each other so much that we texted each other constantly throughout the day. We dreamt up fictional universes, shared our insecurities and when one of us wanted to rant about something, the other one of us was always there to listen.
I became so absorbed that my parents made a rule prohibiting phones at the dinner table. In retaliation, I would sneak away to the washroom, just so I could text her back. Whenever I smiled at my phone, my parents would know it was her. “What’s the hurry?” they would ask, chiding me. “Why can’t it wait?” It was never that I couldn’t wait. I just didn’t want to.
Although I had every intention of carrying through with our connection, transitioning to the demands of university was too much for me to juggle. My friend proved less than understanding to this change. If I didn’t reply, it meant that I didn’t care. Any response that took longer than 10 minutes was too long. One-word sentences like “nice” were disingenuous; “lol” seemed unengaged. We agreed to stop using “lmao” in our conversations because it seemed too “passive aggressive.” “Okay” meant things were not at all okay. They became words we used when we wanted to hurt each other–to make the other person doubt themselves.
I became antsy checking my phone dreading the exact moment she’d text me good morning. I started making excuses, desperate to find anything that could explain my inevitable lapses. I was taking a shower. I forgot to charge my phone. I passed out for a nap because class had exhausted me. I was exhausted — but not from class, from talking. Even the mere sight of an alert would give me bouts of anxiety.
Our friendship had no happy ending. The more we argued, the more I drew away. My friend went off to university herself the following year, and she got caught up in her life, much like I had in mine. The damage we had done to each other, however, was irreparable. It was impossible to part amicably, to check in every once in a while. So we cut all our ties.
Deleting her as a contact was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and knowing I could never reach out to her again made me feel incredibly alone. But it also helped me realize that texting each other constantly had been neither normal nor healthy. Texting was meant to be a convenience, not a hindrance. We shouldn’t have gone out of our ways to put texting first, and we should have never come to depend on each other in the way that we did. Life came first. When you were busy, the people you texted were supposed to understand.
I still get anxious when people don’t reply to me quickly, and the truth is, I could spend a lifetime worrying about why people take their time to reply. I always consider the possibility that people are making excuses, because I kept on making them myself. I always wonder whether I’m being exhaustive, because I felt that way so often trying to keep our conversations going. I’ve become hypersensitive to cues that indicate people are unhappy with me through text, because I was always expected to recognize the signs without ever being explicitly told.
Worrying, of course, does me no good. I remind myself of that every day. I tell myself to remember why I’m friends with people in the first place, because of their personalities and not because of the way we choose to phrase our texts. I tell myself to remember that if someone has an issue with me, I have to trust they’ll take it up with me in person. Texting isn’t meant to be a replacement for talking. If there’s something important to be said, then we have to speak up about it with our phones down.
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By: Sasha Dhesi
Recently an old classmate sent me a private message to wish me a happy birthday. The message reminded me of how I felt when our friendship petered out. We had a similar sense of humour and shared mutual interests, but as time went on, we found that although we still enjoyed each other’s company, we weren’t running in the same social or professional circles, and fell out of touch. I struggled with losing her, especially because, for all intents and purposes, we were still friends. How was I supposed to deal with our relationship just dying like that? What does it say about us that our relationship ended?
There’s a lot of pressure during your early 20s to find that group of friends that will follow you throughout your life. We’re taught that these are the most important years in our lives to build relationships that last. Every once in awhile, this manifests on anonymous posts, like on Spotted at Mac, where an unnamed upper year stresses over not having a clique despite being at the school for multiple years. While this sentiment is understandable, there are legitimate reasons to why you should occasionally let a relationship die, as opposed to working to save it.
There is nothing wrong with hoping that your social circle will follow you through life; the problem is failing to comprehend that you and those around you are going to change. The person you’re going to be one year from now is going to have different expectations and needs than the person you are this year. Sometimes the people in your life change with you, but more often than not, they diverge onto their own paths and can’t give you what you need.
By going into a relationship with the assumption that it’s going to last a very long time, you project your own needs and desires onto a person, which they may not share. In doing so, you stop treating people as people, and instead as objects to satisfy what you imagine your future should look like. Not only is this unfair to your partner, but it’s unfair to you. You should be in a relationship with someone who wants to give you what you need, as opposed to waiting for someone else to change.
Likewise, by assuming you have to remain in a relationship with someone, you run the risk of remaining in a harmful relationship. You are always going to change, but some people may not want you to. My eighth-grade orchestra teacher liked to tell us that “misery loves company.” Although he just meant we should avoid kids who skip band practice, it still struck a chord with me. Every so often, you will run into people who promote unhealthy behaviour and will want you to conform to their desires even if it hurts you.
A lot of people in university feel pressured to stay in these sorts of relationships because they believe that they’ll lose out on that ideal group of friends you hear about in shows like Friends and How I Met Your Mother. But these are the exception to the rule, and in the case of TV shows, completely made up. Chances are, you’re not going to meet your best friend or true love during your first year of university. You’re probably not going to meet them for a very long time, actually. Psychologically speaking, the brain doesn’t finish maturing until you’re 25, if not later. This is particularly true of the critical decision-making portion of the brain. By this standard, you’re not going to be ready to make any long-term decisions until you’re at least two to three years out of your undergraduate degree.
By going into a relationship with the assumption that it’s going to last a very long time, you project your own needs and desires onto a person, which they may not share. In doing so, you stop treating people as people, and instead as objects to satisfy what you imagine your future should look like.
So where does that leave us? Should you just treat every relationship as casual? The best way to balance your desire to change with your relationships is to let your relationships die when they need to. There will be times when someone you used to speak to everyday stops responding to your texts. There will also be times when you begin to dread going certain places because you have to see this person.
The key to maintaining everyone’s dignity and self-respect during these instances is to understand that it’s completely normal for relationships to die during this time in our lives. Be clear about your intentions with someone, and let them know if you’re not happy or satisfied with your relationship. From here, you can either work on your relationship or end it.
We are going through monumental changes, and different circumstances can mean different people are needed in your life. Some people may not be emotionally equipped to handle what you’re going through and vice versa. Treat this as a moment for self-reflection and not as a personal failure.
As for my friend and I, we’re still on good terms. Our relationship may have fizzled out, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t care about each other. What it ultimately says about us is that we were mature enough to understand that we grew apart. You will meet a lot of people and many of your relationships will die. It’s not a negative reflection on either of you, but a reflection of growth. Just make sure you wish them a happy birthday, at the very least.
Photo Credit: Matt Mullenweg
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By: Sasha Dhesi
When I was in the eleventh grade, I befriended a girl named Neba. It was a pretty typical friendship: we were two girls who understood each other’s situations, had mutual interests and talked every other day or so about our lives and whatever was taking up our time, whether it be school, music or anything else two 17-year-old teenagers would encounter. It was a typical friendship, save for one thing: we met online and have never seen each other in real life.
With the advent of new technology come innovative ways of using it. Many people will join online communities based off of a mutual interest, whether it’s something as simple as a mutual love for a TV character to sharing the same political beliefs, and it is common for people in these communities to reach out to each other and form relationships. Unlike many real life relationships, the friends you make online definitely have something in common with you.
Despite this, when you say, “I met so-and-so online,” you’re met with many discouraging questions surrounding the validity of your friend’s identity and their true intentions. Shows like Dateline: How to Catch a Predator and Catfish serve as aggressive reminders to what could happen to those who trust too easily.
But these are extremes that shouldn’t represent the norm. More often than not, online communities give people a chance to explore their interests with like-minded people and build lasting relationships when their offline world is depressing. This is especially true for LGBTQ+ folks who have the misfortune to live in homophobic areas or are uncomfortable talking about their sexuality with people in real life. This is also true for a kid who really likes art but couldn’t share it with her offline friends. If you were to interact with someone a few times a week for a year who connects with you in a way that people in your offline world don’t, that person is a friend. It doesn’t matter that those interactions occurred over a forum, a blog or a chat room.
In my experience, online friends give you an interesting perspective on your life: they’re aware of it, but due to the physical distance, they’re often able to give an impartial view. Your offline friends may be swayed by how charming your cruel boyfriend is, but your online friends, assuming you tell them what’s going on, will tell you what you need to hear. More often than not, the distance allows people to be more candid about their lives and garner the emotional support they need without the risk of having it brought out to their community. Online friends give people an outlet to express themselves without fear.
However there is room for this to be abused. There have been many cases in which people take advantage of someone’s vulnerability and hurt the person beyond compare. But this is a risk that is undertaken whether the relationship is online or off. To be in any sort of relationship, platonic and romantic, means to put yourself at risk of being hurt. A friend knows your fears and intimate details about you. It’s just as likely that you’ll meet a horrible person at a bar as it is online.
The Internet is a wonderful tool to find people who share your interests, and carries its own risks. Many friendships are formed through it, and even something as simple as recognizing someone’s username in a forum can lighten someone’s day.
As for Neba and I, we’re still friends today despite the fact that we both stopped using that forum last year, and both of us continue to have offline relationships of our own. Balance, after all, is key.
Photo Credit: Adam Roberts
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By: Daniella Porano, Emma Little, and Hayley Regis
The Parent
The mom or dad of the house knows how to do everything – cook, clean, and fix things. They text you to as when you’re coming home and make sure you’re okay when they haven’t seen you all day. Checking to make sure you ate, and if you did, making sure it was a balanced diet. This roommate will make a comment if you eat dessert first or if you only eat bagels.
When you’re frustrated and can’t find something, they find it within seconds. When you break something, they can fix it. They remind you to clean, do your chores, your homework, and to study. If you’re going out, the parents likely make sure you get home safely. They seem like the perfect person, and leave you wondering how they have mastered all of these skills, and kept up on all the cooking and cleaning with a busy university schedule. You appreciate that they care, but you also wish that sometimes they would just leave you alone.
The Is-This-Really-A-Kitchen-Or-A-Junkyard-Roommate?
It’s Saturday morning and I’ve come downstairs to make myself breakfast. There’s an inch of mold in my mug, vomit in the kitchen sink, and disgusting Tally-Ho’s remnants in takeout containers strewn across the kitchen table. The garbage bag on the floor is emanating a revolting smell and leaking a mysterious brown liquid on the tiles. Dry heaving and ordering takeout becomes my Saturday morning routine.
This roommate is the dirtiest person you have ever met. You don’t understand how any one person could be this disgusting, until you see their mom come and clean their room one Sunday afternoon. Because you share a kitchen, and sometimes a bathroom with them, you feel like you’re living in a private hell of toxic filth. There is no amount of angry Facebook rants in your house group or passive-aggressive post it notes that will end this madness. Moving out is your only real option.
Meat head
Hey buddy, I know it was you. Nobody else plays enough WoW to use an additional 300GB of internet. Also, I get that you go to the gym and you “gotta get dem gainz” but I don’t understand why that means you dirty every pot, pan, and plate in our house every week. Is it some ritual I don’t understand? If so, I apologize, but I also don’t care, I just want to make some mophuqqin’ KD without having to salvage clean dishes from the mountain of filth you create. Also aren’t you in your mid-20s? Probably stop using Axe, that’s not a thing.
“I’m in a band”
We get it, you’re in a band. But the women you bring home in the night aren’t groupies; I’m 95 percent sure you pay them (which is no big deal, sex work is fine) but I’m not super fond of how often you steal my laundry detergent to do your sweaty sex sheets. Please pay your bills, like it’s been months and I don’t really want to pay for all your shower sex (P.S. it’s not conserving water if you do it like thrice a day).
Are you even in a band? I’ve only ever heard you play the same chord over and over and only at 2 a.m. Why must you smoke indoors? Blowing pot smoke into the vent seems like a good idea until the rest of us get confusing contact highs and try to figure out why we’ve eaten all our chips at 3 p.m. on a Thursday. Just graduate already.
The familiar nervous jitters. The incessant rereading of text messages before sending them. The palpable awkwardness of your overly excited hello as you rush pass them on your way to class.
Was that too much?
It definitely was too much.
All of these feelings are often symptoms of the beginning stages of dating or “seeing someone” or whatever label-less emotion-inducing maze that can be best and unfortunately summarized as a “crush.” Sorry about the 90’s and early 2000‘s nostalgia.
I nudged my friend, motioning to my open text message chat, and asked if my question was “too forward.” I was asking my newfound texting buddy to come over to hang out with my group of friends, which was basically an introduction to an already long-established and extremely dysfunctional family. Nerve-wracking indeed.
But the thing was, this wasn’t a “crush.” I wasn’t interested in dating or a relationship. I just wanted to make a new friend, which is precisely when I realized an uncomfortable reality: making friends is very similar to dating.
Most people are familiar with the initial steps of “friend-dating.” First, the friend request on Facebook, otherwise known as the universal language for getting to know someone at a comfortable distance, both impersonal and padded by the online facade of edited profile pictures and overly analyzed comments. While Facebook friend requests don’t necessarily scream best friends forever, the exchange of numbers, often cited for a utilitarian purpose - you know, “in case I need to get a hold of you for school,” opens up a new intimacy. Call me old fashioned, but a phone number really means things are getting friendly.
If your conversations go beyond the realm of worrying about the upcoming midterm in your shared class or switching shifts at work, you proceed to the next step: casual chatting, often involving a hot beverage so you can avoid eye contact when necessary by taking a well-timed sip.
Once you figure out that you hate the same things, you move on to the “meeting the friends” stage, by inviting them to interact with you at a party or other social event. This is crucial. Can they be cool and have fun with your friends? If the answer is a resounding yes, you’ve found yourself a real keeper.
Then, the last and most important barrier to true friendship: the friend date. Typically, an exchange over all-you-can-eat sushi or greasy pizza, the friend date solidifies your friendship. Not only have you found someone you can hang out with after class, rely on to go to parties together, and text while waiting for appointments, but someone you who you can enjoy a one-on-one outing with. Not only are they interesting and fun to be around, but they like good food too. This date makes it official; you have made a new friend, which is a commendable accomplishment because making new friends can be difficult and stressful.
Bonus: sappy drunk texts that may or may not include the possibly misspelled words, “you’re seriously my best friend.” Maybe in that order, maybe not. But who cares? You’re friends now, and your new friend will be delighted to fill you in on your maybe-not-so-sober love fest.
By: Grace Bocking
Although you may hear cynics of the world claiming that long-distance relationships don’t work, don’t let them discourage you—at least, not if it’s a friendship. While keeping the spark alive in a romance may not be easy when there’s endless miles separating a couple, friendships can often endure a lot more stress. That is, if you know what you’re doing.
Here’s a word to the wise: even though your first instinct is going to be to start strategising ways to stay in touch, don’t count on being able to keep all your promises. The game plan you and your buddy come up with may work at first, but you won’t be able to maintain daily Skype sessions. No matter how much you love them, the world around you is going to be one big distraction. Learn to lower your expectations, be flexible, and don’t put so much pressure on yourselves. This will be an adjustment if you’re used to seeing each other every day, but it will teach you to have faith in the strength of your friendship. If you do feel the need for daily updates, try using Snapchat. You won’t want this to be your only form of communication, but it’s great for quick updates.
It’s also important to note that even though you’ll miss your friend like crazy, every email doesn’t need to be an expression of your undying devotion. This gets stale really fast, and it can be difficult to reciprocate. Don’t say it unless you really mean it, because if you say it too much it won’t mean anything at all. If you’re worried that they’re going to forget about you, try to remind yourself that they probably feel the same way. Their world is going to keep on spinning without you, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t wish you were there.
The truth is that if your friendship was built on convenience, its structural walls probably won’t be able to withstand the stress. Maintaining a long-distance friendship takes equal effort from both parties, and at the end of the day, it will only work if you both want it to. Still, if you truly value each other, not even distance will be able to tear you apart.
