Recently, my roommate and I have started a sort-of game where we will say, “topic,” and then one of us chooses a random topic to discuss. Being a freshman, we are still constantly meeting new people. So many conversations are filled with background information- small talk, where we’re from, our intended major. Don’t get me wrong, my roommate and I love meeting new people! We just like to have different conversations at the end of the night and it’s fun to see what type of “topics” we can come up with.
This week, I learned her opinion on the ending of Gilmore Girls, if she thinks aliens are real, and her thoughts on fortune tellers. My boyfriend and I have a similar tradition. We play a game called “Questions” (I know, very creative), where we ask each other questions that usually start silly and end up getting deeper throughout. Through the hundreds of questions asked over the year, I learned about his candy preferences, bucket list items, happiest moments, and hardest days.
Today, my sorority had a retreat where we shared a piece of media or literature that holds meaning in our life. Walking away from the retreat, I felt like I understood all of the girls at least a little bit more. One question about a special song or book allowed us all to move beyond the small talk.
Even with the friends that you have known for ten years, there’s always something new to learn about them. There’s always a question that you haven’t asked before or a special memory they haven’t told you about. Decide on a random topic and go from there. You’ll be surprised where the conversation leads and how much you don’t know yet about the people you know best.