By the time I had arrived at Cardiff as a final-year direct-entry student on my own, I was excited about the prospect of making new friends. Finding my way to the accommodation, I was greeted with two curious faces and one of them even helped me carry my luggage up the stairs. They seemed like a friendly bunch and they, to a certain extent, were. In fact, most people in my building were friendly. I think I knew most people living there but let us not get lost in the numbers.
Not too long after moving in, I felt I was treated differently by many from how some others were. When I recounted one of those instances months later, a friend asked whether the person I spoke about had been racist. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and answered with a “No”. But she and I also had things in common. Perhaps I had done something wrong, I kept wondering. But, at a later point, when I talked to another of my flatmates, I realised that I was not alone in having that odd sense of unease because the dynamic there had certainly not been ideal.
During the first couple of months, I had known all these people living at the same place and their apparent show of concern left me confused. There was this one person who would wave at me enthusiastically when running into me in the street and then at some point stopped reciprocating when I started doing the same. I spent this time, in my mind, vacillating between “we are getting there” and “we are not there yet” stages of friendships.
Perhaps I had been looking at the wrong place or looking for friendship with the wrong people, you say? The obvious candidates would have been other direct-entry students from my class. But that was not part of the solution, perhaps some due to the faults of my own.
I soon found myself approaching and then sitting somewhat routinely next to a welcoming group in a sea of faces. I even hung out with them outside class, but was never a part of the group. That year, I graduated from a class where I could not name one good friend.
But in spite of it all, I had two flatmates who at times had been my close confidants. Most of the others were simply good neighbours and, clearly, that is what they were looking for in me. I also made friends through approaching strangers. With one of them I even went on a day trip recently. The reason we even knew each other was that we sat next to each other while returning from a GIAG trip by chance and I initiated the conversation. Later, when we met up months later after she reached out, she revealed that she would not have done the same, citing different tendencies.
My story is not too different from the stories of many others like myself. You can have so many things in common with people and it can still not be enough. But sometimes you only need one. Am I talking about friends or things in common with them? Both. Because during this time I also met some wonderful people who reciprocate my energy.
Nevertheless, the reality of the situation simply demands asking whether services like Samaritans are always the solution. You can ring them on days you have nobody around to talk to. There are many societies and events where you get to meet people with various commitments. Maybe you can join them too and, if you are lucky, find people who feel the same way about the same things. But for those who want to take it further, there are also befriending services, albeit with a potentially long waitlist.
Even with all these events and friendly faces around us, the gaps are not too hard to notice as I begin to wonder, are we as a society doing enough? “No man is an island” but at this time of apparent abundance, it is hard to justify.