As the second week of school comes to a close and the dust begins to settle, I find myself asking, “Was last week really that bad?” And the answer I’ve come up with is, simply, no.
Last week, literally every single person I talked to said not to worry about my roommates. I wrote an article expressing such - yet I didn’t even believe it. I was convinced that I would live on the outskirts of my roommates’ friendship for the rest of the year - convinced that our differences were too extreme and we would never click.
It took a minor conflict between Autumn and Genie* for me to realize I wasn’t as ostracized as I made myself believe. They weren’t jiving as well as I assumed. In reality, they were two people who had something in common and built a friendship out of it - as one usually does. That didn’t mean they were going to be best friends for life and that I would never befriend them separately.
After some self-reflection, I realized that I made up the entire third wheel narrative. I was never downright ignored or obviously turned away by my roommates. Instead, I was a girl thrust into a wildly new situation with two strangers - and my anxiety took over.
Trust me: your roommates do not hate you - and neither do your neighbors or the kids who sit next to you in English 220. I got caught up in my own head and picked up on non-existent cues, or actions I normally wouldn’t.
I asked three friends, from three different colleges across the country - California, Idaho, and New York - what their first impressions were, and if they’ve changed their opinions after the first week at school. What I learned is while we are sharing the same new experience of living alone with strangers, we all have different perceptions of the situation.
For one friend at Boise State, she clicked with all her roommates right away. This might have to do with her general bubbly nature or the fact that her roommates are “easy-going.” Her first impressions were right - for the better.
However, another from San Francisco State experienced the opposite. She said, “I did feel that ‘gotta make that good first impression’ act from them, which I had expected." After a week of hanging out and talking she has been able to see that they are more down to earth than she had originally thought.
On the other end of the spectrum, a friend from NYU, whose intuition has since been proven true about her roommates. “The experiences so far have just confirmed what I initially thought,” she said of her roommates.
So remember: first impressions are just that - the primary impact someone has on you. It might change, it might not - take the time to step back from the situation and decide for yourself.