Picture this: It was the beginning of my final semester of college. I had landed an internship at a large non-profit in Atlanta, and because the other intern on my team had left, I had landed my own office. That’s right. A 10x10 room with my own desk and a wonderful view of the parking lot.
I know it might not sound that glamorous to you, but it was a very big deal to me.
Fast forward a month into the glory that was having my own office, and my boss stops by to talk to me one day. He proceeds to tell me that he was going to be hiring another intern, and when that happened, the new intern would share an office with me.
That was the end of an era. The days of having my own office ended more quickly than they began, and needless to say, I was not happy about it.
About a week later I met the new intern when she came in for her interview. Her name was Noelle. She seemed nice, but everyone’s nice at an interview. So after she left, I did what any college-aged girl would do in my situation: I stalked her on Instagram.
After scrolling through her pictures for a few minutes, I gathered some very useful information. She was a hipster. She was artsy and liked skateboarding. She was a cheerleader in high school, and she had a massive tattoo on her left arm. To sum it up, we could not be more opposite.
I was a little more prissy than hipster. I loved sports. I was homeschooled, and I’m scared to death of getting a tattoo. All of that to say, I decided pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to like this girl. We just didn’t seem like we would get along. Not to mention she was basically hijacking my office.
On her first day of work, she walked in with her trendy outfit and her hipster glasses and sat at the desk across the room from me. I was nice and said hello, made some small talk and got back to work. I wanted to make it very clear that I didn’t intend to be friends. It was like a scene straight out of Mean Girls.
But a couple days later, something changed. The small talk turned into meaningful conversation. The more I got to know her, the more I realized we had a lot more in common than I originally thought. We both loved Jesus. We both enjoyed writing. We both were both perfectionists when it came to school and work, and we both spoke fluent sarcasm.
It didn’t take long before we weren’t getting any work done, because we were talking so much. It was the beginning of a friendship I never expected, but one that I am beyond grateful for.
Over time, Noelle has become one of my very best friends. She has encouraged me through the really tough days. She has celebrated me on my best days. She’s been a sounding board when I needed to vent, and she has helped me grow immensely in my faith.
I think about my friendship with Noelle a lot, about how I would have missed out on something great if I had stuck to my original perception of her. But how often do we make assumptions about people that shape our perception of them right off the bat? How often do we make judgments before we actually take time to get to know someone?
People always say don’t judge a book by its cover, but we judge people by their cover (or cover photo) all the time. We think we know someone because we stalked them on social media, but we don’t actually make an effort to talk to them and understand who they really are. So, my challenge to you is this. Take the time to get to know the people around you. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming things about someone based off what their Instagram says about them. Don’t dismiss people from your life just because they’re different from you. Be intentional, and make the effort to understand where people are coming from.
It only took three days for Noelle and I to realize we weren’t that different after all. Sure, I wasn’t always the biggest fan of cheerleaders, and she thought homeschoolers were weird, but we were able to see past the superficial labels and form a friendship based off of faith and trust and humor and a mutual love for Vampire Diaries.
My hope is that next time you’re ready to write someone off because you don’t think you can be friends, that you’ll take a second and remember that there’s more to someone than their social media accounts. The person in front of you might end up being one of your very best friends. Or if your story ends up like mine, you might even end up being in her wedding. You don’t want to miss out on that, do you? So dig a little deeper. Have a conversation. Go to coffee.
Make the effort and who knows? An amazing friendship might be just around the corner.
