The liberation of friendship: how friends at University set me free

Friendship for me has often felt like a game of balancing acts where I’ve found myself teetering on the edge of vulnerability. However, as I navigated the intricacies of my final year, I found that real friendship flourishes in the most unexpected places and at the most unexpected moments. It has deeply altered my mindset on how it truly feels to belong.

As I returned from my year abroad, scared and defeated without a single acquaintance left in Leeds, I made the grand decision of getting out of my comfort zone. Pushing my luck, I decided to take a room in a 10-person house. ‘What could go right?’, I thought to myself with utter pessimism, having decided that I would be spending much of my time locked in my bedroom to avoid any and all interactions. But loneliness got a hold of me. Doom-scrolling had reached its limit, and I caught myself watching the same videos again and again. I unlocked my bedroom door and exited my well-curated haven. I looked back and waved goodbye to my comfort zone as I made my way down the stairs and into the living room where I chose a spot on the sofa with everyone else, something that for me, felt heroic.

In return for my bravery, I was given three incredible friends. If you were to ask me how we ended up becoming friends, I couldn’t tell you! All I know is that, day by day, I came to know what true friendship at university felt like. These friends proved to me that it is truly never too late to make friends at university. Slowly, I began to realise that I would have missed out on them if I hadn’t decided to venture out of my room that night; and that would have been catastrophic! I had convinced myself that my final year of university would consist of annoying housemates and avoiding eye contact in the kitchen. My preconceptions swiftly slipped away as our friendships deepend by the day.

And so, it began. In a living room, tucked away on a street right by the university, our chatting commenced. The world around us was unbeknownst to the four of us spending endless nights talking, getting to know each other, gossiping, watching movies, listening to music, or simply soaking up our time together. We bonded through numerous inside jokes and random sounds with our sense of humour clicking instantaneously. It seemed that these four people, who did not even know each other existed the year prior, had connected almost instantly and in a very unique way.

One late night led to the next, and another late night led to an early morning, as time together became cyclical. Everything I thought of, they already knew. My jokes were theirs, my laughs and my cries were theirs. Even the most mundane and boring moments shared together left my tummy hurting from laughing. We embarked on late night trips to the local Tesco and soaked up the sun on our picnic bench. We sat by the pond at Roger Stevens and went on bike rides through dodgy tunnels and up steep hills. We’d get the train to a nearby city to taste good curry and even jetted off to a faraway island to swim in crystal clear waters. We almost did everything together.

Our breakfasts always somehow coincided and even if they didn’t, we always seemed to stick around with the others to finish. During one of those never-ending breakfasts towards the end of the year, I suddenly felt a gentle warmth filling my chest. Between talking about our plan for the day whilst playing catch with an orange, I let out a big sigh. The devil on my left shoulder kept reminding me that I was running out of time with them, whilst the angel on the right one pushed me to enjoy the moments I had left with them. I did not care about my lectures, my supervisor waiting for an email reply, my dissertation expecting to be written by me, or my parents preparing for me to return home. I wanted to stay at that table, in that messy kitchen with the overflowing bins. I wanted to stay, talking about endless nonsense and throwing around that worn-down orange. In that instance, I felt truly happy.

Although that moment didn’t initially seem to need any embellishment -as someone who tends to romanticise everything- I couldn’t resist. Intrigued by word derivations, I found myself looking up the word ‘friendship’. A quick search revealed that the word ‘friend’ traces its roots back to the Old English ‘frēond’, which means “to love, like, honour, set free”.

Set. Free.

Maybe after all, genuine affection holds a liberating power.

It seems that, at its core, friendship embodies a timeless and cathartic connection. If there’s one thing that these friendships have made clear to me, it’s that it’s not about grand gestures or perfect movie moments. Instead, it’s the shared experiences that bind us together. As I reflect on the bonds I’ve formed with these people, I find myself redefining what friendship truly means. To me, it’s about the comfort of familiar faces, the laughter over nothing, and the relief of being yourself without fear of judgement. That’s how I know that what we have, is real.

Words by Aria Aristotelous