How you know you’ve met your best friend in college

It was a typical Thursday night during the fall semester of my freshman year at Syracuse. I was at a party, and in typical alcohol-induced fashion, I decided that I needed to use the bathroom.

Unfortunately, about twenty other girls also decided that they needed to use the bathroom. After waiting in line for what felt like forever, I saw a familiar face behind me. I couldn’t recall her name (for reasons involving alcohol), but I recognized her from Italian class.

Since alcohol often causes one to be overly friendly with people they have never actually had a conversation with, I decided that the proper thing to do would be to hug her and let her know that I loved her even though this would be the first time we had ever spoken.

After a session of drunken love declarations, we decided that we’d had enough with this line. It was at this point that we decided the most favorable alternative would be to go to the bathroom outside. We proceeded to exit the back of the house, climb up an incredibly dangerous hill, and go to the bathroom in the woods.

The thing about alcohol is that it gives you the ability to perform athletic feats that you probably could not accomplish while sober. After finally going to the bathroom and making it back to the party (impressively uninjured), we spent the rest of the night together.

I was prepared to deliver the “I’m really sorry, I was just so drunk” apology for being overly friendly and weird that night, but that conversation never happened. We sat next to each other during Italian for the rest of that semester.

Now, Magda is one of my three incredible roommates, my best friend, and basically my sister.

She’s my shoulder to cry on, the owner of a plethora of incredibly embarrassing pictures of me, my therapist, the person I laugh the hardest (and loudest) with, the person I write creative fiction for on a daily basis, the person who holds back my hair and takes care of me during my roughest nights, the person who passed out after being forced (by me) to give blood and the person I would do absolutely anything for.

There’s no scientific or mathematical way to know for certain when you will find your best friend, but when it happens, you just know.

I learned a few lessons from this experience on making friends in college. The first is that everything happens for a reason. The second is that you need to put yourself out there. Talk to people that you wouldn’t normally talk to because honestly, what’s the worst that could happen? Whether it’s in class, in your residence hall, in clubs, or parties, you are constantly surrounded by amazing, wonderful people that could change your life. Embrace each and every opportunity (no matter how unorthodox) to step outside your comfort zone and meet new people.

The final lesson is that if you ever are offered the opportunity to climb into the woods with someone you barely know to go to the bathroom you should take it because you might just find your best friend. I owe everything I have to my smallish bladder, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.