Every person you’re going to stay friends with from halls
Yeah, you know the ones
The people you meet in halls can range from the bizarre to the extravagant.
But some of them, just some of them, turn out to be alright.
You share the same cutlery, you’ve watched Narcos on the same grimy sofa and you’ve collabed on your first deep house playlist for pre-drinks.
This is a list of all the people you should stay friends with after halls.
Your fresher helper
The safe warm embrace of a figure in authority. You’ve never been away from home before. They know everything and everyone. You only dream of being that cool and latch onto them like a leech.
Forever known as the clingy one, referred to as furniture, you sit there idle at pres, occasionally throwing up in the ring of fire wok to get their attention.
You soon realise your frep is a terrible influence on your life and turn back to your flatmates, only to awkwardly bump into them on a Wednesday night when they’re getting with your mate who you always fancied. Soon they’ll be using your toothbrush.
“I’m aiming for a first, mate”
They skipped three nights of freshers week and they have emailed their module convenor already.
You keep them around because you know in three years when you’re a few weeks away from your diss hand-in and you haven’t done your reference list they’ll be there to wipe away your tears.
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The promoter
He might be 26 and technically doesn’t go to uni anymore, but he spends more time on campus than you do.
You don’t even have to worry about not getting tickets when you visit again after graduating, he never seems to leave.
They had you at free tickets for Mint on the first night.
The relationship went through a rocky patch in second year when you deleted them on Facebook for inviting you to five events a day, but that’s water under the bridge now.
The DJ at pre-drinks
No one cares that they did a fortnight’s work experience at Mixmag in London and edited the uni’s bummout music magazine. But they won’t let that stop them from never letting a song play all the way to the end at pres.
You stay friends with them just on the off-chance they actually make it in music and don’t sell their souls for the nine-to-five grind and the occasional trip to SGP.
Gym buddy
He’s not heavy, he’s your brother. Gym time isn’t a routine, it’s a ritual.
Bis and tris on a Monday afternoon before a big night out is the time you bond over who you want to get with later that night, what your gameplan is and to agree on how uni rugby just isn’t worth the effort.
Your gym buddy isn’t just someone you’ll work out with for your first year then leave behind.
At some point in your friendship you’re going to have to accept one of you is weaker than the other. If you can take that on the chin and your gym buddy doesn’t rub it in your face, then you’re going to be mates for the rest of uni.
Your flatmate who goes home every weekend
Hannah from Tamworth just can’t get enough of Johnny back home.
He comes up for the penultimate night of freshers’ week, never to be seen again. It’s suspected he has a kid back home by a previous lover – Hannah’s even mentioned it once or twice but do not bring it up.
However, much you try and make friends with them, it will never work out.
Most likely you’ll invite them to watch a film and they’ll be skyping their mum. Or worse, it will be their boyfriend or girlfriend back home, who, in the lamest move ever seen, has ordered them a pizza remotely. You can’t bear to look as they share two medium ham and pineapple pizzas and gaze at each other’s glitchy faces.
You went through an initiation together
There’s something about a bond formed under the intense pressure of naked grease wrestling that you just can’t find in any other situation.
You have to stay mates with them, because otherwise they’ll tell everyone what happened with Hugo in the basement of your Rugby dad’s house.
Check out how close you and your flatmates are with Spotify Mix Mates
Spotify Mix Mates lets you calculate how synced your music tastes are with your friends.
Students can get Spotify Premium for only £4.99
The clean living convert
Last year you were stuffing your face with mystery meat in Kebab Kid at 2am with the best of us.
Now you spend most of your time sucking down spinach smoothies and shopping for wifebeaters made from wheat.
Last Friday you were too busy doing pullups (sorry, callisthenics) to make it to Dave’s housewarming.
We’re losing patience with it, and soon all you’ll have to keep you company is your collection of lentils and nothing but kale to wipe away your tears of painful self-loathing.
The fourth year who keeps re-sitting
I know what they say about try-try-try again but maybe the universe is try-try-trying to tell you something.
The randomer who you walked back from the club on the third night of freshers
The third night of freshers you didn’t pull, you lost your friends in the SU at 2am and someone spilt half a glass of Snakebite over your white Primark t-shirt. You lose your bearings on your way home and now you’ve been walking for over an hour and you end up in the rough council estate on the other side of town.
You see each other on campus time-to-time – you don’t acknowledge each other as it just brings up too much pain.
The Welshman
Just because your last name is Lloyd doesn’t mean you get to celebrate, pseudo-Valleys twang and all, when England are put out of the rugby world cup.
The only thing Welsh about them is their crushingly pained outlook on life and their constant desire to be alone. You keep them around to remind you that sometimes life is a grey, bleak desolate wasteland, and that’s ok.
The R.A.G.er
“Guys, you should all come on the event this Saturday at 7am, we’re going to Scunthorpe to collect money for albino goldfish, how sick is that!”
The neat freak
You’ll stumble into the kitchen, hungover from the night before, and there they are, rubber gloves on and bleach in hand.
They were up at 8am because they “can’t sleep” when they’re hungover anyway so thought they might as well clean everything up.
You say you feel bad, but they reassure you it’s totally fine, they just love cleaning.
Six weeks down the line, they’re leaving passive aggressive notes on the fridge and have issued a cleaning rota to everyone in the flat.
They start hiding “their” plates and glasses in “their” cupboard and before you know it, they’ve removed their toothbrush from the bathroom and only take it in to clean their teeth at 9pm before they go to bed.
Check out how close you and your flatmates are with Spotify Mix Mates
Spotify Mix Mates lets you calculate how synced your music tastes are with your friends.