Remember your very first day at Western. No matter if it was last month or a year ago. Even if you’re here for four years now, be honest and please don’t tell me that you can’t remember. Because I know you can.
This very first day of university might be one of the most important days in our life. Because on this day we were all the same. Some of us might be more open-minded, some were rather shy. Some knew already people over here, others were all alone. But after all we all left our homes and moved to a new place. Suddenly we were all beginners, we were all starting anew. And we all wanted one thing more than everything else in the world: We wanted friends. We needed friends.
Remember how we rushed around the first days of school, always looking for something happening, always looking for a chance to meet new people. It was simply not possible to spend a minute alone. I mean, we could have missed an opportunity to make friends. We talked with everyone; we collected all these cell phone numbers that we would never use. In orientation they repeated again and again to get involved, to be polite and to stay social.
But go on a little bit, try to remember more clearly. Didn’t you have this one moment where you stood in middle of a group and just wondered, “Who the hell are these people?” “Can I trust them?” “Will they still be here tomorrow?” The goal was certain: get to know as many people as possible, make friends with everyone.
So far, so good. But what happened then? What happened after the first week passed, after we all settled down a bit? When did we decide who’d be our future friends and who wouldn’t? How exactly did we choose them? Or did they choose us?
See, this is the fascinating thing about friendships. There is this one point were people you met, suddenly turn into friends without any of you knowing it. Isn’t this genius? Isn’t his magic in a way? It’s like we take a huge colander and we put everyone we just met inside. And then we shake it. And sometimes, maybe more often then we would think, the ones who go through the colander are the ones we would have never chosen as our friends in first place. Suddenly we find ourselves sharing our deepest thoughts with people, with whom we’ve never thought to exchange five sentences with. People we didn’t even know they exist a month ago. Isn’t that wonderful?
And guess what? These persons are the only ones that matter. To know a ton of people, to be popular, doesn’t keep you from feeling lonely. Just these few persons – who’ll be there if you call them, who care if you’re scared and who’ll still be with you, even if you’re annoying them like hell – only they matter.
Editor: Katelyn Kivel