How many of you are still friends with your room mates or other dorm fellows from college days? How well did you get along with them when you were there? How supportive you were to each other?
All my friends from college nearly 30 years later are from my dorm I was placed in freshman year. I stayed there 3 years. We have attended/been in weddings and exchange cards and text semi regularly.
My best friend in the entire world lived on my Freshman hall. My next best friend lived across the way. We live thousands of miles away, our lives have diverged in countless ways, but when we get together it’s like we are all still 18 years old. There are five or six other college friends who I am still very close to- didn’t live in the same dorm though.
My freshman year roommate wouldn’t recognize me if she ran me over in her car. My sophomore year roommate and I have sent condolence notes back and forth when our parents died but that’s been the only contact in 35 years.
But the other friendships have endured.
Still in touch with two of my roommates. One I lived with all four years, the other moved into our apartment for the last 2 years. I was in a quad freshman and sophomore year and then in 3bd apartment junior/senior. The roommates I stayed in touch with were awesome. Definitely my best friends at college and super supportive.
We’re also close to my husband’s roommates (who I also basically lived with).
Everyone went to each other’s weddings and stay in frequent contact.
I keep in touch with an apartment mate from college, as well as some friends from my major. My best friends didn’t live in my dorm, and I do keep in touch with them.
My DD has a gaggle of good friends many of whom attended her wedding this year…all from her freshman dorm.
@CupCakeMuffins how about you??
I’m like @VickiSoCal , I consider myself to have gotten so lucky with my randomly selected Freshman year roommate and hallmates. We all are still friends 30+ years later. We lived together all four years. We all also had other friends and my roommate wasn’t my “best friend”, but she was/is a great friend and the other gals too. Before I went to college my dad said “this is where you will make the friendships that last for life” and boy was he right.
I was a community college transfer into my liberal arts 4 year school, so did not have the same time to build the depth and breadth of friendships that others make over the course of 4 years. I do maintain FB friendships with several classmates and professors, though.
The woman that was my best college friend and off and on roommate died almost exactly 7 years ago in her elementary classroom from an unexpected medical issue. I still deeply miss her.
I didn’t stay in touch with my college friends. I think it is a disservice to students to expect that they will make friends forever, the best 4 years of their lives, etc etc. If expectations are so high, many are bound to be disappointed. If it happens, that is wonderful, but the romanticization of the college experience leads lots of kids to wonder what they are missing.
I met my BFF freshman year 1968. 50 years later we’re still going strong. Just a couple of months ago we had a Boston adventure that included seeing Hamilton and driving to Connecticut to visit another friend.
I wasn’t close with my freshman year roommate (no problems but not a match) but I’m very close with my soph/jr/sr year roommates. We keep in close contact even though we live far apart.
I exchange emails, infrequently, with two women I roomed with in college. I’m not on Facebook and I sometimes wonder if I’d be in touch with more college friends if I were.
I am having lunch tomorrow with a friend I’ve known since I was 14. We don’t see each other often, but we have a tradition of getting together in December and catching up. It means a lot to me.
My friends from college I met in the dorm freshman year. They are all still my best friends today although spread out throughout the country. There are 11 of us. We travel somewhere every other year usually renting a big house, spending 4 days together. I never laugh harder than when I am with them.
We have a Christmas ornament gift exchange every year that has been going on for 36 years. We have a group text thread and we are in communication at least once a week sharing our highs and our lows.
I can’t imagine my life without them!!!
I have a monthly breakfast meet-up with 5 of my college friends - 1 was my freshman roommate, 1 was my sophomore roommate, 2 of them lived in the room next to me freshman year. The 5th was one of my 3 apartment mates my senior year. So they are all dorm friendships, and they are still my closest friends (know me the best) after 35 years. And I still keep in touch with my other 2 senior year apartment mates, they just live elsewhere in the country. In total we have a core group of 12 of us who get together every few years when we can make it happen, often for a reunion week-end on campus but we also did a big 50th birthday week-end. Friends for life!
My best friend from my freshman dorm is still my best friend, though we haven’t lived in the same time zone for 15 years. She’s dealing with a family health crisis right now, and we’re texting every day.
I did exactly what you are not supposed to do. I lived with my best friend from high school( from middle school actually). She and I were just talking about how we had no regrets. 45 years after we became friends we still talk every single day and see each other at least once a week. Rooming together for 4 years of college and 3 years of law school (!) just forged our bond. I feel blessed every day to have a type of relationship very few get to experience.
Another one here who roomed with best friend from middle school. Still super friends We moved far away from each other after college but still stay in touch. I can’t imagine a better scenario–we ran in totally different circles due to our interests and majors but met so many more people that way. It truly expanded our friend circle. Maybe we did better because there was no competition at all–we only could support.
My friends from college (and I married one!) are very much my best friends to this day.
Making friends isn’t easy–it needs common interests, time and a certain amount of close proximity.
College dorm experiences bring all three of those into focus.
^^ I tend to call college roommate friendships, and college friendships in general, ‘conditional’ friendships - those which exist due to a kind of mutual need, there being but a finite pool of persons with whom one tends to be in close proximity for a great period of the time. They can be really heady and feel essential, or just “nice” and fit well into one’s own schedule.
I know someone who is big-screen (as in, portrayed in the movies) close to about five of the women with whom she attended college. They support each other through everything, and now they are supporting each other through the college days their respective kids are experiencing.
I had some roommates who so challenged my ability to believe that each of us seeks to put our best foot forward each day. Agh!
My sophomore year roommate and I were completely different from each other, and I think we must have had a moment or something when we just hooked our arms together and leaned into the other. We were incredibly trusting and supportive of the other, and learned from each other the entire time we were in school.
We haven’t kept in touch, but we did run into each other once, and that was a joyous moment.
I also lived with a good high school friend Freshman year - by the end of the year we were no longer friends. However, my random roommate for Soph year is my BFF to this day!
@CupCakeMuffins I’d love to hear your answers to the question in this OP. I mean otherwise…what’s the point of this thread other than to “gather posts”.