The Cavalier Daily
Serving the University Community Since 1890

“Leave high school behind,” they said

Rooming with a high school best friend isn’t always a disaster

Everyone told us we were making an utterly terrible decision. In hindsight, the choice to tell our friends from our all-girls school averaging 60 students per grade — an environment not necessarily prone to keeping information private — was worse than our agreement to live together. What a heinous idea to start your college experience by doing the opposite of branching out and living with someone you already know — or so people made us out to feel. In actuality, rooming with my best friend from high school turned out to be the highlight of my first year at U.Va., dare I say it.

“We’re friends from high school” has always prompted a look of disbelief when asked how we know each other. This is an obvious nod to the stigma hovering over the idea of sharing a dorm with a friend from your hometown. Of course there is the possibility of not getting along and thus meddling with the dynamics of your friend group from high school — an issue Eileen and I were assured we would create. However I found myself at ease with our decision after I attempted to find a roommate through Facebook — an awkward conundrum of girl flirting via instant-messaging and stalking profiles, which ultimately led nowhere.

From my perspective, adjusting to college entailed enough challenge in itself. Rather than dealing with the hassle of getting to know a stranger — invoking discomfort in the place you’re supposed to feel the most at home — I was granted the benefit of living with someone who already knew how to deal with my quirks or moods and I with hers. I’m not sure how welcoming someone else would’ve been with my disregard for the pile of laundry I allowed to accumulate for weeks at a time or my occasional blasting of 1960’s music.

Despite efforts to discourage us, our experience has been nothing but positive. It’s true that living with a friend from high school poses a threat for some. But for us it only means our inside jokes have grown in number and we’ve been able to comfort each other when things get rough because we know how to do it already. We could retreat to an element of familiarity and normalcy when overwhelmed with the bewilderment of starting school at a university with more than undergraduate 15,000 students — coming from a sheltered Catholic school of just 200 girls. And yes there were moments of weakness, as some would deem it, when we reminisced on memories from high school when the feeling of all that was new was a little too much to handle.

I have friends who say they knew they’d found their best friends within the first five minutes of meeting them. Eileen and I fortunately dodged this cliché. I don’t remember how or when we first met nor can I recall the exact moment it was when we became friends. What I do remember from my high school years as an underclassman is how I envied her thick-framed Ray-Bans — she would want me to clarify that they are in fact prescription — during my awkward phase of self-discovery during which I feigned troubled vision at an optometrist’s appointment with the hopes of getting my own pair. I remember being taken aback by her relentless sarcasm and her unequivocal, sometimes brutal honesty. I remember she had a fish named Dante and was far from daunted by arguing “politely” with our teachers. Though I was more intimidated than wanted to be her friend per se — an element not normally included in the history of most friendships— I eventually got to know her through our cross country team and from then on she’s been the best friend I’ve ever had.

It’s never been clear to me why a piece of advice so often lent out to students is to “forget high school.” Starting college shouldn’t be a competition over who can make the most new friends the quickest. Who you were in high school and who you were friends with are fundamental elements of who you are, there’s no need to be ashamed to admit if it’s hard to let go of those things. From the start, our friendship hasn’t been traditional. However our living together has colored my time at U.Va. thus far with many memories I probably wouldn’t have created in the time it would’ve taken to get to know a random roommate. I’m glad to share college with my best friend and I’m glad for storytelling purposes that our friendship doesn’t have a typical track record.

Comments

Latest Podcast

The University’s Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment and Undergraduate Admission, Greg Roberts, provides listeners with an insight into how the University conducts admissions and the legal subtleties regarding the possible end to the consideration of legacy status.



https://open.spotify.com/episode/02ZWcF1RlqBj7CXLfA49xt