“Katelyn, how do you know everyone?”
“Katelyn it takes you an hour to do anything.”
“Katelyn, seriously, you talk to everyone.”
These things are all true. Freshman year I lived on sixth floor Livedalen (shout out to my girls!), and to get a soda from the basement lounge took me an average of an hour and a half. Now for some of you this seems foreign or annoying (maybe even disgusting), but it is my punishment as an extroverted and genuine, socially curious creature. Many of you may be asking yourself “cool, so she gets to know everyone but, now I’m stuck here alone in my room with no one to talk to because I am painfully afraid of social-ness…”
Well here I am, mama social. I would like to introduce you to a very fun and simple way of getting to know people.
The first way and the one most recommended by RAs and upperclassmen alike is simply leaving your door open to your dorm room. For some of you, that is simply not an option because of roommate preferences. Or a dirty room. Oops.
Another way is to sit alone in the 12:10 to 12:50 stupidity of a lunch rush and then make friends with those who are not lucky enough to have friends save them a seat or have too many classes.
My favorite and, most recently introduced to me, is what is called a Friend Draft. You can make it a game or goal, even a competition. Essentially you pick a few people and over the course of a year or a semester you get to know these people. What I have found is that in the process of trying to know them, I get to know their friends. So five turns into ten and then into fifteen. While I may have only learned that a friend draft exists this year, I can definitely say that I have done similar activities since high school (socially curious nature I guess). I have met some fabulous people and gotten to know entire groups of unique people that I would probably never have met if I did not get the idea into my head that I definitely wanted to be their friend.
I hope those of you who want to meet more people can get it done in some way or another and hey, if I am on your friend draft: do not be afraid!!
