Truthfully, I’ve never been very good at making friends. I’m quite awkward when meeting new people and find it to be an altogether unpleasant experience. So you can imagine my anxieties towards coming abroad and having to meet many new people and live with four complete strangers. But they quickly dissipated.
I find it quite amazing how quickly you can become close with four individuals. Maybe it’s because of close-quarters, or perhaps a simple matter of hours spent together in conversation, exchanging stories, crating inside-jokes, getting to know each other. Or maybe, it’s the act of forging new memories that links you to people.
Three of the above-pictured individuals are my roommates, and the fourth is a guy in the same program as some of them. Fate sort of brought us to each other, well fate and the lure of the green isle. In some ways we didn’t really get to pick each other, we were thrown together, and honestly, there was a 50/50 chance that we would even tolerate each other. Thankfully though, we have become quite good friends, and spend almost every day together. We have “family dinners” on Thursday nights, movie night at least once a week (the specific day varies), we play card games until we’re sick of them and we drink until we’re just sick. We travel together and plan to travel together, we explore together and we grocery shop together. We’ve found our way around Maynooth and Dublin together and have figured out public transportation together. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried together.
Halloween is coming up in a few days and we plan on dressing up together–we’re going to be spooky scary skeletons–and we have plans to stay up all night and watch Halloween movies. In November we’re having “Friendsgiving” and at the end of the semester a Secret Santa. My birthday was on October 9, and they planned a surprise party for me. No one has ever done that for me before. At that point, we had known each other for maybe 3 weeks. I would consider them four of my closest friends, and I plan on continuing that friendship even when I return. I love them. They are some of the best people I know and I love them all very dearly. They’ve changed my perspective on friendship, and the rules of friendship. You see it doesn’t matter how long you know someone, that’s not what determines a relationship. Friendship is not something you can quantify, no amount of time nor energy can replicate a friendship. It’s an organic thing that happens when you least expect it. in the unlikeliest of places.
This semester is my grand adventure, and like any grand adventure, it requires comradery. And I consider myself incredibly lucky to have these friends with me for the journey.