Freshman year of college is a time filled with uncertainty, excitement, homesickness and adventure that brings forth a whole whirlwind of emotions for students. It's the longest time that most kids have ever spent away from home and the first time that most kids have ever had to deal with living with strangers. For most students the strangers assigned to occupy the same bedroom and share a bathroom end up being some of the best friends that they made in college. I'm a junior now and, after having lived with three sets of people, the strongest bond that I experienced was with the girls who I lived with during my freshman year. Your freshman roommates are some of the best friends that you'll make in college for several reasons.
Everyone was a stranger to them too.
When you're in your first semester at college, unless you got lucky and a lot of people from your high school ended up at your college (people who you didn't hate, which, let's be honest, is a pretty small group by the time senior year of high school rolls around), then you're surrounded by strangers morning, noon, and night, in the dorm, dining hall, your classes, and clubs. Everyone is looking for friends and what better place is there to start than with the person in the bed across the room or in the room next door?
You were all blank slates who hadn't experienced college yet.
Cliques aren't a thing in college. When everyone's friends end up at different universities (or don't go to college, join the military, etc.) the groups of jocks, popular girls, Emo kids and every other group dissolve. Everyone seems to assimilate pretty easily into a group of homogeneous "college kids," but it's always easy to pick out the freshmen since they're the ones who didn't pause to think that it might be weird to walk around with a lanyard around their necks holding their precious student IDs. Everyone grows up and realizes that friendship is deeper than the sports that you play or the makeup that you wear. Regardless of who may have made up your high school wolf pack in college you're all the same at the end of the day, kids sharing a room that you all suspect is haunted.
They worried when you're weren't around.
Your freshman year roommates don't want to be alone in this big, scary world of college so you might end up swapping schedules. Late at night when you've gone out to a social gathering or other event they're the ones texting you to make sure that you're safe and that you're coming back soon because they miss your company and sleeping alone in a dorm room is suddenly not an option, even though you've likely spent the last 18 years of your life with a bedroom to yourself.
They were your go-to people for lunch, dinner, and party buddies.
Remember when you were a freshman and you thought that it was so lame to sit alone in the dining hall? For the first time in your life you had the freedom to go wherever you wanted and eat whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. You definitely didn't want to go alone.
If you didn't want to go to the dining hall alone you texted your roommates.
If you wanted to go on an 11 p.m. Taco Bell run you texted your roommates, knocked on the wall, or threw something across the room at them to get them on board with your strange Quesarito cravings.
If you heard that there's going to be a social at Johnny B's tonight you texted your roommates and spent hours obsessing over your hair, your makeup, how you're supposed to act, and if the cute boy from economics is going to be there.
They got your sense of humor on a deeper level than anyone else at school.
You had to test the waters with certain things around your freshman year roomies, not the least of which was if it's okay to cuss, gossip, or make certain jokes, but once you guys figured each other out it was so easy to make each other laugh. They're the people who knew what funny YouTube channels you procrastinated with and who your favorite Viners were. When you knew that they had a big test coming up then you knew exactly which funny memes to text them to wish them luck.
You knew a lot of embarrassing things about each other, so being enemies would be dangerous.
You were all probably each others' best friends on Snapchat and, as a result, they surely had a folder full of embarrassing selfies on their phones so #ManCandyMonday or #WomanCrushWednesday was always a dangerous day if they needed a reason to get under your skin. Plus, because you're together all the time, they know all of your little embarrassing mannerisms like how you somehow manage to spit all over the mirror when you brush your teeth or how you talk in your sleep (and occasionally laugh in your sleep, in my case). Being BFFs was, to some extent, a strategic decision because no one wants the person who hears you snore every night to be an enemy.
They were there for you when no one else was.
They were the ones laying in bed across the room when you're both trying to sleep and a deep, super bizarre life question popped into your head, a sudden wave of homesickness came over you, or you were crying into your pillow because your public speaking professor failed you on a speech and you just needed someone to tell you that it was going to be okay. No matter how you felt about each other in the morning by the end of the day you were in this thing together.
Your freshman year roommates were strangers who came together by chance, or by some sort of matching system devised by the housing office, and you were there for each other because you shared the same space and had no choice but to be there, but over time your friendship became one of the best ones that you've ever had. So here's to your freshman year roommates, the people who you never would have been friends with in high school and who became the people who you'll want standing next to you at your wedding.
