Types of People You Become Friends with In College Cuz You’re Nervous and Don’t Know Anyone
The Nympho Who Loves Edgar Allen Poe: This chick bought all the “deep” posters she could at the campus fair. What’s up Einstein! What’s up “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!” She reads dark, gothic poetry and is also into Tibetan prayer flags, even though she is a vocal atheist. Sometimes you smoke pot together and she tells you about all the guys she’s banged in the dorm shower. Did they remember to wear flip-flops? you wonder.
The Person You Watch The Office With: You are so relieved to meet this person. Finally, some one else who has two licks of sense about what’s good on TV. You can pop over to their dorm room every Thursday night and sit on their bean bag chair and talk about whether or not to invite other cafeteria mainstays to your TV-watching parties.
The Boring Pretty Girl: At first you’re excited to be friends with this girl. Ooh, maybe you’ll be more popular than you were in high school. She clearly knows how to make friends, and her table in the cafeteria is always full of new people. But as you spend more time alone with her and she says things like, “I don’t know what to major in. I’m just not interested in things,” you realize you need to look for new friends.
The Girl Who Really Just Wants to Go Back to France Again: This mousy girl has latched onto you for some reason. Maybe it’s because you say you’ve read La Nausee and she thinks you’re a kindred spirit. At first you’ll listen to her talk about how she wants to become a professional cake baker (she’s serious) but when she starts listing the ways that America is inferior to France, according to her 3-week vacation there, you just can’t stand her anymore.
The Uber Flirtatious Frat Rusher: This dude thinks you’re cute, so that’s kinda cool. He’s not your type in that cowboy hat and popped collar, but there’s no one else to sit with while you watch morning news and eat muffin tops every day. But when he starts talking about rushing his frat all the time and how weirded out he is by the touchy drunk gay guy, you get sick of him.
The Touchy Drunk Gay Guy: You love the touchy drunk gay guy. He likes tequila shots just as much as you do, and he’ll watch America’s Next Top Model with you and remember who won from all the past seasons. Sometimes he just disappears while you’re partying, and he always has really crazy barf-related stories over breakfast the next morning. When he’s super wasted he grabs you and wants to know what your boobs feel like, but that’s ok cuz he’s just gay and drunk.
Your Christian Roommate: This is fairly self-explanatory. You live with her so you are like “well we might as well get along and see if we at least have anything in common music-wise.” She is nice and well-meaning and she invited you to a mixer! Ooh a mixer! That sounds like fun! It’s not. The mixer has mocktails and ends with a prayer.
The Eco-Freak: This guy hands you a flier while you are waiting in line at the Caf, causing you to immediately question all your options in the lunch line. You get to talking while he teaches you to make a healthy stir-fry at the wok station with things from the salad bar and he tells you he thinks you should “stop by the community garden project.” You sign his petition to get all the school fleet vehicles to run on french fry grease. He thinks it’s because you are committed to the cause. You know it’s because you are enticed by the idea of the quad smelling more like a Mickey D’s.
The Smoking Guy: This dude is just always outside your dorm. Like always. So you kind of become unavoidable non-friends, type friends. You see each other five to eight times a day but do not know each other’s first names. Smoking Guy is really the kind of non-committal friend you want to make. He will always bum you a cigarette, due to your unspoken bond.
The Single Mom: When you commute your freshman year, you end up getting to class about 20 minutes earlier than you would ever have to normally. For some reason, single moms are always in class even earlier than that, usually with about 3 notebooks out a Gladware full of soggy salad. At this point, you’re missing all the dorm TV parties and you can’t be picky about who you make friends with. Single moms are usually chatty, always willing to show you a photo of their 2-year-old who “this is all for” and eager to tell you about how insane their daily bus schedule is. They appreciate you for remembering little Tristan’s name and are always reliable when it comes to writing down assignments because “life is so crazy right now.” Eventually they’ll spill their water bottle on you and will be “so so so sorry.”