12 Mar 2020

Aaah, O-week – the glorious, notorious, magical first week of uni where unforgettable friendships are formed, unmentionable memories are made and undrinkable drinks are downed.

I remember my first O-week well.

More specifically, I remember my first day at O-week. And if the ‘o’ in O-week were to stand for ‘onion’, then I would dive yet another layer deeper and tell you that even more specifically, what I recall most vividly comes not from my first day at o-week, but my first night.

You see, I took a leap of faith when I started uni and moved away from home – a decision I never regretted, but one which ensured my first night at O-week would also be the first night spent in my new home. A night that began with me not knowing a single soul in town and ended with me questioning the very nature of my own.

I’d heard stories about o-week. The week where thousands of like-minded new students let loose before settling into a semester of study. This was the week to make friends, to learn your way around town, to have fun.

Well, for my first O-week, it wasn’t until well into the afternoon that I rolled into town and rocked up to my new home. Already freaking out that everyone would have formed friendship groups in the morning, I was convinced I’d be an outsider for the remainder of my time at university.

Fortunately, there were a few kind faces around as I unpacked, and by the time sunset rolled around and I was grabbing the last of my things, I’d managed to make a mate: Jeremy.

Jez (I was quick to nickname him in my desperation to not be friendless) was new to town too and had arrived only a couple of hours before me. We decided to grab a feed then head out to a nearby bar and see what O-week was all about.

After a quick kebab (at 8pm… man, we had so much to learn), we found ourselves at the bar. And we found ourselves at a party. And it was just what you’d expect from a night out during O-week.

Everyone was fun, and everyone was friendly. It was the first day of the uni year; no huge friendship groups had been formed, no ‘cool’ people had been established, and nobody was out of anyone’s league. Everyone keen to make new friends, and the vibe was amazing.

There’s no vibe like O-week.

 

Immediately my fears were beginning to disappear. To see that everyone else was in the same boat as me – new, alone, eager to make mates – was the most reassuring thing possible. I was able to relax. Uni was just like school - you don’t make all your friends on the first day. Instead, your relationships grow, twist, turn, evolve, vanish, re-appear and burst at random, like the infinite tiny bubbles in a glass of lemonade.

After a couple more glasses of “lemonade”, I felt relaxed enough to talk to a girl.

Jez and I found two lovely ladies who appeared to be in a similar situation to us, and we got talking. We navigated through the ocean of small talk, crossed the where are you from river and the what are you studying rainforest, and arrived in the heavenly meadows of banter, laughter, and flirty, fluttery eyelashes.

The girls were staying on a different uni campus to us, and after a while, they invited us to walk them home. Jez and I, our imaginations running giddy and wild, agreed.

Their campus was a long way from ours. While Jez and I reached the bar from our new home in a matter of minutes, this walk back to the girls’ campus took easily over an hour. Not that it bothered us, though – we barely paid attention where we were going as we followed the girls, trying our best to act cool but not seem like we were trying to act cool.

When we arrived at the campus, Jez and I were mentally preparing to wish each other farewell and good luck as we went to the respective rooms of the girls we had paired up with. Instead, we were surprised to find ourselves walking in the same direction.

Certain that one of us would soon be stopping to turn into one of the many bedroom doors we were passing, our surprise grew as the girls approached the one door, together.

“She must just be saying goodnight to her new friend,” I thought desperately as they walked into the room and beckoned for Jez and myself to follow. We walked in, and immediately our hearts sank. These lovely girls hadn’t simply met because they shared a campus. They also shared a room.

They were roommates.

I stuffed my sinister, suggestive imagination as deep as it would go and the four of us proceeded to watch movies until we fell asleep.

Keep in mind that this was long before Netflix, and years before the word ‘chill’ was used to describe anything other than the ideal temperature of a delicious beverage. Watching a movie was all we did and any chills were dealt with in the appropriate manner – one of the girls’ mums had packed her a spare sleeping bag, which she graciously allowed Jez and me to share as we drifted off to sleep.

At 4am the first fire drill of the year went off, and Jez and I took it as the right moment to head home. We bid farewell to our new friends and begun the walk home. However, both of us were new to town, and neither of us remembered what direction we had come from.

It was a long walk.