I Met My Best Friend At Uni, And It Changed Everything For Me

This article is by Daniel and is called:  I Met My Best Friend at Uni, And It Changed Everything For Me

When I decided to write a piece about my experiences at university, I thought I’d start at the beginning, with my first day. Weirdly for me, I don’t remember it that clearly.

I have an astonishing memory. And that’s pretty much the only positive thing I’ll say about myself – ever. But, yes, my memory is very good and is my greatest asset. I can remember dates, statistics, anything factual with absolute ease. I can tell you without having to even consider using Wikipedia that Liverpool drew 2-2 with Young Boys in the Europa League group stages on 28^th November 2012, with Jonjo Shelvey and Joe Cole scoring in the 33^rd and 72^nd minutes respectively. 

I have no issue in recalling Warrington Wolves’ useless 14-34 loss at home to St Helens on 22^nd September 2018, the same day as Liverpool defeated Southampton 3-0 at Anfield with Joel Matip’s fourth goal for the Reds – though the football kicked off half an hour later than the rugby.

It barely stretches my mind to tell you that Peggy Mitchell married Archie in Eastenders on 2^nd April 2009 – it was a Thursday and two days before Warrington beat York 56-10 in the Challenge Cup first round – a competition we went on to win. I can vividly remember waking up at 5:50am to watch the 2010 Korean Grand Prix and being bitterly disappointed to see the race delayed several times before my favourite driver Fernando Alonso took his 26^th career victory and cheered me up greatly. 

I remember hearing Lady Gaga’s ‘paparazzi’ on 96.3 Radio Aire for the first time on 21^st June 2009, the day after the singer Michael Jackson died. I was in the car with my Mum and brother – we were driving past the whalebone arch on Wood Lane in the tiny town I lived in. Warm day, that was.

So how unusual then, that I can’t really remember my first day at university? The only thing I can really remember is likening the situation of being in a new flat with a group of new people to Big Brother. I think part of that is because first year went by so quickly for me. 

One thing I do remember about the early days at uni though is struggling to properly associate myself with people. I saw my flatmates and coursemates making friends that they would go on to keep for a long time, whereas I spent many a night sat on my own in my room doing pretty much nothing.

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Maybe that’s why I can’t remember too much of my first year at university so clearly – because I didn’t actually do that much. Why did I shy away from getting involved in doing things and going to events? Well, the key word was in the question, as I’d say to the children in my Year Three class. Shy.

When I was younger, I always found "shy" a difficult word to define. What does it mean to be shy? I think those first few months at university gave me a better explanation than any dictionary could.

If a person could play a six-month long game of charades where they had to act out an emotion, I was doing it with ‘shy’. I would go to lectures, talk tentatively to the people on my tables about the tasks, come back to my halls and stay in my room for most of the time, occasionally going into the kitchen to make some food, or – if I was feeling really confident – have a short conversation with one of my flatmates, who were all perfectly pleasant and far more well-versed in the social world than I.

And that’s what I was lacking. Social experience. Knowledge of how to conduct myself in social situations and among other people.

I became popular with people on my course at uni as the time went on by doing the same things I had done all my life – being extroverted and making funny comments from time to time, and overdoing the sarcasm and dry humour. It’s how I’d got by before, so I had no reason to change tack.

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I had to kind of play a bit of a character to overcome my shyness and loneliness, which were genuine feelings, but ones that I had lived with long enough to know how to cover up. One thing I will say is that my state of mind never affected my studies – I was always very good at essay writing, although I did sometimes leave them a bit late!

The back end of first year changed things for me. I got lucky, and everything turned around for me as a result. There was a girl on my course who for the purposes of privacy, I’m going to call Rosie. She herself had been a bit quiet in lectures at first, though I had enjoyed my few interactions with her, she had a good sense of humour and spoke about things in the same way I did. It wasn’t until Easter time that she became of significant importance to me though. Late on in a Sunday evening, Rosie called me her best friend. These weren’t words that I was used to. I felt comfortable with her. For the first time at university, I wasn’t playing the character. I was being my genuine self, which sometimes feels a very unfamiliar person to me.

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I could sense that a good friendship was brewing with Rosie, but it still took me by surprise when those words left her mouth. I do remember that. 10^th April 2016. Liverpool had beaten Stoke 4-1 that day with Alberto Moreno scoring his last ever goal for the Reds in that match.

Fast forward three and a half years, and we are still best friends and have the most unbelievably strong and special friendship – one which neither of us would ever want to be without. Second and third year were made a whole lot more enjoyable for me because of her presence in my life. For the first time ever, I became a truly happy person, and I would say that’s the case now, even though we don’t see each other particularly regularly now because of how life is post-uni, our friendship is stronger than ever.

So, to conclude, a few bits of advice and a few messages to take away from my time at university. If you’re someone who lives (lives, not suffers) with Asperger’s or consider yourself to be a shy or introverted person, then university, particularly the early parts, may be a bit tricky, as they were for me. But don’t give up. If you’re as lucky as I am, something will go your way and change everything for you. What I will advise though, is not to bank on that. Rosie coming into my life and becoming such a massive and influential part of it was incredibly lucky for me, and make no mistake, if it hadn’t happened, second and third year would’ve been just as challenging and lonely as the opening part of first year had been. 

Meeting Rosie didn’t make me into some socialite with thousands of friends, it just gave me one special one. The way I was with everyone else at uni didn’t really change, particularly in third year where I was very nervous around my flatmates and struggled to find the confidence to form any relationships at all with them.

So if she hadn’t arrived, God knows how dull and lifeless I’d have found the rest of my time there. I really am so very fortunate that she did appear in my life, but like I say, don’t take it for granted that you’ll have a Rosie in your life. Because if there’s one regret I have about my time at uni, it’s that I didn’t involve myself anywhere near enough with people early on, which put me at a huge disadvantage as time went on. 

Don’t wait for uni to come to you, go and get it yourself, because it’s difficult to catch up to people who are further down the uni journey if you don’t immediately throw yourself in. You’d be surprised how welcoming people are, particularly if you show an interest in them. I’d say that confidence is appreciated by people, so you may wish to adopt my strategy of feigning it (but make sure you have plenty of practice!) Believe in yourself and remember that there’s a seriously high chance that you’ll come out of university with at least one person who will be in your life for years to come.

I’m me. I have Asperger’s Syndrome. I have a wonderful memory. And now I have wonderful memories.

 

 

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