Mercer /ˈmɜːsə/ noun
On-campus housing reserved for first-year students. Typically consists of four strangers sharing an apartment, a kitchen that sees more chaos than cooking, and the unspoken agreement that you’re all figuring out adulthood together.
When I first found out who my Mercer flatmates were going to be, it wasn’t some huge cinematic moment where everything clicked into place from day one. We met online the summer before university, four girls on an awkward video call, trying to get to know each other while grasping for safe topics of conversation. Somehow, that meant we ended up discussing wisdom teeth and cults (not connected, just equally bizarre), and that – that was our beginning.
By the time September rolled around, we had our big “first day of medical school” photograph – backpacks slung on our shoulders, my mom behind the camera, all of us smiling like primary schoolers on their way to Year 3. Honestly, the picture looked less ‘mature university freshmen’ and more ‘four kids about to be dropped off at recess.’ But it’s perfect.
What I didn’t expect was how much those strangers would become my anchors. See, I thought I’d found my real friends elsewhere. I had another friend group, the kind you imagine filling your camera roll and your social calendar with for years to come. The kind you convince yourself is permanent. Until it wasn’t.
When that circle cracked, my flatmates were quietly, unassumingly, there. They weren’t loud about it. They just showed up – in the kitchen, in late-night study sessions, in all the small ways that ended up mattering most. They stuck. Sure, living together meant they didn’t have much of a choice – but they stayed and became my home in a city that didn’t quite feel like home yet.
We had a bulletin board in the kitchen we shared – a whole corkboard we could’ve used for schedules, grocery lists, notes, even some polaroids. Instead, we used it for exactly one thing – a blue sticky note with a list of all my allergies (specifically ordered by severity). No fancy décor, no inspirational quotes, just “things Ramisha cannot eat under any circumstances.” It sounds small, but that act of care from people I’d just met meant everything. It was their way of saying, “We’ve got you covered.”
(We’d joke about getting it laminated, but we never did, just in case it needed to be edited, yet again.)
And then there were the nights.
Walking out into the freezing dark at 10 p.m., long after the city had shut down, just to experience our very first snowfall together.
Staying up until 3 a.m. in the name of “studying,” which quickly devolved into impromptu 70s dance routines, filmed on someone’s phone (and permanently locked away in our vault of secrets).
Sitting together, hand-in-hand, in the Emergency Department at midnight because I needed to be there, and that’s just what you do when flatmates turn into family.
(They didn’t even mind. The only grumbling came from our fourth flatmate, who was asleep and acted like we’d left her for a field trip to Disneyland rather than a late-night run to the ED.)
They became my loudest supporters even outside those four walls. When my dance team had its big showcase, all of them showed up like my personal fan club. They weren’t just in the audience; they were there for me in the front row, cheering louder than anyone else, making sure they’d carved themselves into that memory too.
They saw me at my most vulnerable. A 17-year-old who’d never lived away from home, suddenly aching for her parents, craving the familiarity of her own room.
They were more furious than I ever was when someone did me wrong, ready to fight battles I had already decided to ignore.
They sat with me during the nights before exams when they magically transformed into my unofficial tutors – giving me crash courses on topics I hadn’t managed to wrap my head around, quizzing me until I felt halfway human again.
I hadn’t been the luckiest with friends before moving to Dublin, but maybe that was because something better was waiting for me here.
Flatmates are supposed to be arbitrary. A lottery draw. A handful of names thrown together by the university housing office.
And most of the time, people will tell you your “first friends” in college won’t last.
But sometimes, the universe surprises you. Sometimes strangers become the people who know you best.
And sometimes – if you’re really lucky – they’ll dedicate an entire bulletin board to your allergies, and call it friendship.