I think Taylor Swift says it best: “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.” Even though I’m not exactly sure who she is talking about, whenever I hear this lyric, I can’t help but relate, especially as I slowly approach the end of my time in college. I think about all of the people I’ve met, all of the people I’ve loved, and all of the people I’ve simply interacted with. I may not know every single person’s laugh or the specific way they take their coffee, but there are a select few that I could probably write a biography about. Their high-pitched wheeze followed by guaranteed tears. A black coffee, hot.
My friends and I always joke about how interesting our early friendships and relationships were when we first entered college. These jokes make the sour situations a little sweeter with space to reminisce and dive deep into the nostalgia. I find the concept of strangers so odd. Like how can we be the bestest of friends all freshman year and talk every single day, but now we just walk past each other going up the Babbio stairs like nothing ever happened. Or how could we spend an entire night talking and laughing and spending time with each other, and then a few weeks later we slightly wave and pretend like we don’t know each other?
And sure, this could pertain to romantic relationships and exes of course (sigh), but more so, I find the concept of strangers to be more influential when talking about friendships that are no longer.
When you’re a freshman, they really just throw you into the fire with no means of extinguishing it. You move into a new place, different from the room you’ve known all your life, and are expected to be best friends with the random person in the other bed. You go to orientation and clash with everyone in your year, trying to see what friendships stick. You go do crazy sidequests that consequently trauma-bond you, for lack of better words. My point is: all of these experiences are shared with the most random people. It’s only a matter of who you bump into first that will decide your friendships for the first couple weeks of school. You go through the rest of college intentionally meeting your people through Greek life, athletics, organizations, and other activities, seeking out like-minded friends. You jump into new, curated friend groups, and it’s the people who share some of the most formative moments with you who are suddenly strangers. So strange.
And then, of course, there are the relationships we experience throughout college. The first “serious” college boyfriends and the weekend dinner dates, friendships that never let you buy your own coffee, and all those in-between situations. However unsubstantial and fleeting these interactions can be, these relationships can seriously rewire things in our brains. Like, take an ex, for example. They know everything about you down to your deepest fears, and that one thing you told them that nobody else in the world knows. And I know how you like to spend your Sundays and exactly where you got that scar on your knee when you were six. Even though we don’t talk, we still know each other more than most people probably ever will. And I may or may not be talking about specific people in my life, I could be making these stories up just to juice up this paper and have you all thinking “who is she talking about?” for all you know.
Alas, I’m no better than the next person. I too don’t typically reach out and try to rekindle with those I’ve shared moments, months, and all the in-between with. I sit with the dissonance and hypocrisy – I like it like that sometimes. It’s contradictory and blissful!
Strangers are a weird concept, especially in an environment like Stevens, where we all kind of know each other. I guess not everyone will be in our lives forever. I wonder if we are all just strangers.
