When I came to university, I was sad to leave all my pals at home and trying to make new friends is tricky at first. You have this strange point 3 months into first term where you’ve found people you connect with but you’ve not made the leap from friendly with each other to solid friendships. The most important thing in building on new friendships and taking them from course mates you see out and about to lifelong pals is going through (sometimes strange) experiences together and so I’m going to list the best things to do together to cement your girl gang’s bond. All of these are things me, my flat mate Jess and my pal Charlie have done together and trust me, we are together for the long haul after these bonding experiences.
1. Go on a night out together
Friends that wiggle together, stay together so get glam as a group and play some drinking games. Make your way to the middle of the dance floor and have a good boogie. We like to go to Club I where the floor is carpeted and even the walls smell of sweat. They play the same playlist of 2000s music and bad drum and bass remixes and we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
2. Meet for the debrief in the morning
When your friends have seen you at your worse, smudged mascara and sick in your hair, they are no longer just acquaintances, they are your friends for life. Meet up after the night before to exchange all the awful selfies you took and remind that one friend how ugly the guy she got off with is. Bond over a fry up and have a brew.
3. Make a group playlist
When you start to find gals that you think you could be friends with, you need to have a group playlist that you can whip out at pre-drinks. Bonding over screaming Sam Smith half cut in a dirty halls kitchen is the best way to take your friendship to a new level so pick some tunes together and call it something super creative like ‘pres playlist’. (Here is a link to ours – https://open.spotify.com/user/1111803796/playlist/3BIx8DaSAsI9yTh5vzpcqM?si=CqCCO6nkQJeYAl6VX7_aEw)
4. Go on a road trip
If you make good life choices, you will have found someone with a car and latched on. Find that person and enough of you to fill the car and go explore what’s outside of your local area. If not, hop on a bus or trek to the nearest train station. We all went to the Eden Project and despite having the worst hangover of my life and nearly vomming in the car, it was super fun and the journey in the car singing to the radio together on the way back was the best part of the day.
5. Get piercings together
There’s nothing that says besties better than getting bits of metal shoved through your skin. Getting pierced was one of my favorite group activities because it felt a little more permanent. Not only does my newly inflamed ear look cute (well, it will when its healed) but every time I look at it, it reminds me of seeing my girls with tears rolling down their faces…. From laughing at me in pain.
6. Have a shelf in the cupboard at theirs
If you’ve already followed step 1 -5 then you should be pretty close by now which means it’s time to take the final step. This step took us the longest to get to. In my trio, I already live with Jess in halls, but for the past 7 weeks, Charlie has been in my flat at least 5 days a week and so we took the plunge and cleared a shelf for her to leave her tinned tuna and a Bolognese sauce in our kitchen. She has (un)officially moved into our flat and our friendship has been set up for life.
Have a great time finding a group of chicas to call your own, good luck shaking them off.