Leave your door open they said.
University influencers circa 2023 gave one piece of advice on repeat when it came to making friends at university: leave your door open.
Come September of my first year on the 3rd floor of Morris Hall, my door was wide open. Every waking moment I was in my room, that door was open, and I sat at my desk with a smile on my face.
I would wish people a good day in the mornings and tell them to have fun when they went out at night.
The hallway outside my room got a lot of foot traffic, so I was saying ‘hi,’ ‘hello,’ ‘how are you’ more times that I can count.
For months I lived in a fishbowl before I realized those influencers may not have known what they were talking about.
My floor fostered numerous friend groups, yet I wasn’t a part of any of them, and I didn’t understand why. I questioned if I was doing the right thing, and whether I was likeable enough.
Two months into the school year, I gave up on leaving my door open and sat behind the shut door without the hint of a smile on my face.
Entering my fourth year, I look back and realize that leaving my door open is in fact how I met some of my best friends.
In Ban Righ Dining Hall, I went up to a boy I had never spoken to before. He was wearing a cool shirt, and I told him so. He asked me to eat dinner with him, so I slid into the old chair across from him.
We talked about all the normal stuff. Where we were from. What we liked. Our programs.
I didn’t get his phone number or Instagram, but I walked with a smile on my face, just happy that I met someone new.
I saw the same boy a week later; he waved me over and once again, we ate together. We talk about everything and anything, the conversation flowing easily between us.
After a great deal of laughing and a rather okay dining hall meal, I asked if he had Instagram.
I woke up to a message a couple days later, the same boy asking if I’d want to hang out.
I raised my eyebrow: a planned hang out this time? I realized that me and dining hall boy might be becoming friends.
Dining hall boy was the first unlikely friend I made, but he was far from the last.
The night of Halloween, as I enjoyed the energy that lit up the residence area, two girls I’ve never seen before came up to me.
They had recognized me from a mandatory floor meeting and had decided that we were going to hang out.
I laughed but agreed. After all, what was the worst that could happen?
I spent my Halloween hanging out with these two random girls. We went up and down the maze of floors in Gord-Brock, raced on the track of Tindall Field, and had a grand time walking back to Morris in the early hours of the morning.
Those two girls messaged me the next day. They wanted to hang out again, and I didn’t really have an excuse to say no, so I said why not.
Taking advantage of the meal plan food on campus, we went to Location 21. We seemingly had endless memories and a bunch of inside jokes after just one night of hanging out. I learned the girls were roommates and that they lived just down the hall from me.
So, I started knocking on their door. I took advantage of the juice boxes and free cheese snacks they seemed to have in endless supply. I even conspired with one roommate to prank the other and laughed harder than I ever had before.
Over time, their room become almost as familiar as my own.
Three new friendships. All random and unplanned. I credit all of them to leaving my door open.
At the end of the day, I don’t talk to any of the people that walked by my open door, but every week without fail, I message the people I met on these rather serendipitous occasions.
My friendships with the boy from the dining hall or the girls from Halloween could have very easily been shrugged off. I could’ve just said no and walked away when asked to hang out. I could’ve ignored their follow ups. I could have done any number of things that would have resulted in me missing out on the chance to know some of my now best friends.
Leaving your door open doesn’t always mean physically propping your door open. Instead, it’s more of a mindset.
Leave your door open to possibility. Say ‘yes’ when people ask to hang out. Offer people your Instagram. DM them and ask to hang out. Take advantage of the meal plan to arrange shared meals.
Saying no is easier. Retreating to the friends you already have is comfortable. Living in a fishbowl is not for the weak.
However, I left the door open.
When the time came for me to leave first year behind, I wasn’t leaving with my friends from day one, or the friends I had from high school, or the people I met in orientation; when first year ended, the people I left with were the people I left the door open for.
Tags
first year, friendship, Residence
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