Maria Arozamena
We landed in the same FroCo group. A few days later, the same FOCUS group. As I dragged myself up to the fifth floor of Vandy and witnessed a familiar figure scurry to a room in the same entryway, I felt an inkling: the universe wanted — no, not wanted, needed — us to be friends.
Two and half years, 15 grave “misunderstandings,” three soul-crushing delusions and one pseudo-priest boyfriend later, Alastair remains one of my closest friends at Yale. I wonder how I was lucky enough to meet him. I didn’t really have to go searching, after all.
But how do you find your Yale people, especially since — more often than not — they don’t spawn right in front of you?
In the vastness that is the Yale social scene, you encounter all sorts of figures. From your seasoned theater kid rushing a cappella to CS major by day, Sig Nu man by night to living, breathing encyclopedias of Egyptian hieroglyphics and fifteenth century lore, every genre of person imaginable seems confined within the gates of Old Campus. Yet this diversity often overwhelms and obscures the ways of navigating the social scene here. At least it did for me.
As I wavered through the inevitable frat phase and endless mixers of my first semester, I found myself relying on categories to split up the kinds of people I’d met that day. Every “what’s your name, what are you majoring in, where are you from” turned into a systematic basis for how I understood people: New York kids, STEM baddies, Econ majors, the ones who already knew they wanted to go into consulting — see: “sellout.” In order to try to find where I stood in this new social stratification, I even tried to apply these categories to myself, trying on new personas to see where I fit in best. I even cosplayed as DS for a whole semester before realizing I did not, in fact, enjoy classics besides the Greek gods in “Percy Jackson.”
I thought that through identifying with others around me I would be able to find my “niche” and fit in. With the heavy-laden anxiety of a first year watching the world spin in a chaotic attempt to navigate friendships, I watched others slip in and out of friend groups like a wet water balloon. Wait, throw me a bone, imagine trying to hold on to a wet water balloon for longer than a few seconds — you can’t.
It was only through a few spontaneous — misguided, even — sequences of events that I would begin to find the people I consider my best friends today. It was in the pre-frosh summer orientation program ONEXYS, intended for students looking to get a sense of what math classes at Yale were like, that I would meet the grounding presence of my time at Yale. Through sheer fate and a dash of the delusion that I wanted to be a STEM major, I met Catalina.
Through Catalina, I met Hannah. Through Hannah, I met Abby, and through Abby, I met Caroline. A conveyor belt of friendship that magnetized us; an aura of comfort and tenderness that stabilized my Yale experience. Through our pajama and PowerPoint parties, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” movie nights and breakups spent over bottles of wine, I’ve witnessed every movie cliche acting itself out right in front of my very eyes. Perhaps that’s why I feel such comfort — I’m witnessing something I’ve already watched in what were once out-of-touch reality TV shows or in the sparkling fairy books I read as a kid, the ones with the security of knowing you love everyone in the room just as much as they love you — and you love them a lot.
Math classes were the root of not one, but two of the most profound valves of friendships and friend groups that I’ve discovered at Yale. I don’t quite remember meeting Emme, if I’m being honest, but a gum wrapper dated Oct. 2, 2022, with the words “I’m EXTRA lucky to have you as a friend!” holds testament to the foundations of our friendship in Math 115. By Halloween, I had met Emme’s suitemates Maggie and Zahra and their friend Sam, who would grow to be my best friend, fellow Pitbull enthusiast and the roommate I know and love today.
I like to believe that the universe has batches of surprises, often in the form of friendships from the unexpected. Unexpected meetings, unexpected crossings with that person who introduced you to her suitemate, who then brought her boyfriend and his friend over, and you thought the friend was super sweet and now you hang out every night. Who would’ve thought?
But alas, we do have free will. And friendship, I’ve come to realize, is not merely about the unexpected. In fact, you often have to make space for it — because without expecting it, without allowing yourself to soak in your time with others and make it a part of your routine, you end up missing out.
I love my Yale people, the nooks of comfort from close friends and the warm feeling of coming home to a suite full of your best friends munching on late-night Taco Bell. But my most joyful times at Yale have come not only in these late nights, but also in the meal I finally grabbed with that one person from a seminar first year and in the giddy hellos I wave to my old PL. My Yale people are not just the best friends I’d love to claim as my own for forever, but they’re the new friends who make me wonder how I could have gone a whole two years without them. They’re the characters who skipped a season or two and are only now leaving their mark on the show: catch-up meals and get-to-know-you coffees. They’re the familiar faces I walk past every day, passing smiles in the autumn breeze.
If you ask a student what their favorite thing about Yale is, most will tell you that it’s “the people.” I never knew what this meant until I celebrated my 21st birthday surrounded by a crowd of smiling faces in bald caps and “Mamma Mia” outfits in the low blue lighting of my suite. Living with my favorite people, loved by my favorite friends, watching my favorite faces dance and jive, having the time of their lives.