The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 — 16
On making
friends during a
pandemic
BY LEAH LESZCZYNSKI, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
E
ver since I arrived on campus last year, vetting
classmates in discussions, student organization
meetings and informal gatherings, in hopes of
creating more fulfilling human connections has become
second nature to me.
Prior to the new world created by the COVID-19 pan-
demic, typical student life provided numerous opportu-
nities to spark relationships with those around us. This
semester, 78% of undergraduate credits and many student
organizations are taking place entirely online — the vir-
tual format undoubtedly proposes a unique, less desirable
situation for learning and student interaction than “nor-
mal” circumstances. Further, the benefits of the limited
number of in-person classes, events and serendipitous
moments are thwarted by differing levels of fear of a high-
ly contagious virus, the spread of which is highly related
to human proximity. Today, fewer
conversations between classmates
follow them out the door of their
discussion room, no packed dining
halls encourage interaction among
students sharing a table and no fans
in the Big House means no student
season ticket holders will harmonize
over a chorus of “Mr. Brightside”
during the 2020 football season.
LSA sophomore Samuel Levy told
me about his entirely remote class
schedule over email.
“I’d say the obstacles I’ve faced
are due to the very procedural and
formal aspect of Zoom,” Levy said.
“It just feels way too formal and ev-
eryone focuses on the work. Obvi-
ously, this is probably the best-case
scenario in terms of class, but for
making friends, it’s not.”
Regardless of whether a student
is a seasoned senior or clueless
freshman, on or off campus, follow-
ing or ignoring public health guide-
lines, outgoing or introverted, the
ability to maintain and make new
friends seems to be another aspect
of student life that has been radically
transformed by this virus.
LSA freshman Makayla Beardsley
shared her struggle to make friends
after arriving on a campus unrecog-
nizable to the traditional expecta-
tions of what college life looks like.
“There was a long period of time
when I first got here that I didn’t re-
ally try to meet any friends,” Beard-
sley said. “I (could not) really go to
anyone’s dorm room and (could not)
even see anyone’s faces unless we
were eating due to masks, so I got
stuck asking ‘What’s the point?’”
This perspective is understand-
able, and I cannot imagine how difficult it is for incom-
ing students to be starting their lives at the University of
Michigan amid this pandemic. Even in normal times, it is
hard enough to adjust to the college experience and make
meaningful connections in a new place, but trying to be-
come part of the University’s community virtually is not a
challenge most incoming students anticipated or prepared
for when picturing and planning their college years.
Asked about the new aspects of life taking place vir-
tually, Levy wrote, “A lot of people believe that making
friends, or even dating, online is the last resort. Although I
don’t necessarily agree with this, I think that the reason it
is perpetuated so often is because there is a lack of ‘seren-
dipitous moments’ when meeting anyone online.”
There is something to be said about the compara-
tive value of in-person connections. Looking back on my
freshman year, the night I shared a twin XL bed with three
friends in Markley for a “Riverdale” marathon and then
sang Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” to the 2 a.m. audi-
ence in the communal bathroom is among my most trea-
sured serendipitous moments of college. None of my fond-
est memories from my first seven months of college were
made with Zoom, FaceTime or Snapchat.
Today, these types of moments, marked by gut-wrench-
ing laughter and togetherness, are more difficult to have.
The opportunities to even make friends to share these ex-
periences — whether virtually, or with masks — are few
and far between. Levy himself has felt this.
“After class is over, everyone just leaves Zoom and goes
on with their lives,” he said. “If we were in person, just the
physical act of being together when class ends and col-
lectively walking out of class definitely makes it easier to
strike up conversations with anybody outside of class.”
LSA freshman Caitlyn Bloomburg told me about mak-
ing friends in the dorms during the pandemic.
“There are some people who will stop to have a con-
versation with you in the hallway, but there are also the
people who will just look down and walk by, and try to
keep their distance.”
On top of the virus severely reducing the number of op-
portunities to make friends, some students are finding it
harder to maintain relationships cemented by in-person
interactions from six months ago before the full force of
the pandemic hit.
“Most of the friends I have made aren’t on campus this
semester, so the only contact that I do have with them is
online,” Levy said. “As for the friends I have on campus, I
can’t meet up with them because of COVID. I have been
interacting with all of them through texting and some-
times FaceTiming, but other than that, nothing else.”
Beardsley experienced a similar struggle.
“Some of the friendships I’ve had have definitely got-
ten tested due to COVID social distancing guidelines,” she
said. “Because my current friends back home are all at dif-
ferent colleges, we only interact through social media and
phone calls, but we’ve tried our best to make it work while
still trying to keep everyone safe.”
Simply put, friends are important, to our social and aca-
demic well-being, our health and thus our quality of life.
Friends provide support in all aspects of life, and in col-
lege, when family is often hundreds of miles away, friend-
ships are often looked upon to share struggles and provide
reassurance and comfort.
Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy investigated
the importance of human connection in his book “Togeth-
er” by exploring loneliness as an epidemic itself, as well
as its role in numerous national epidemics — thereby pro-
posing the question of how the loneliness epidemic may
be exacerbated by the current pandemic. Even before CO-
VID-19 turned many of our lives upside down, the men-
tal health of college students was
particularly concerning to public
health experts, with increasing rates
of anxiety and depression among our
demographic in recent years. Now,
during a time of increased isolation
and stress about the state and future
of our world (and even the continu-
ance of our democracy) brought on
by the pandemic, the increased dif-
ficulty of making and maintaining
friendships makes this time period
a great test of our mental resilience.
Notwithstanding the tribulations
of life in a pandemic, students have
pursued and created new opportuni-
ties to make friends and meaningful
connections.
Bloomburg told me about her ef-
forts to make friends this semester.
“I joined the Class of 2024 Facebook
page, and people were posting bios
about themselves … so if I had stuff
in common with people I would add
them on Snapchat or Instagram.”
She also shared that her resident ad-
viser has a “speed friending” Zoom
call in the works to facilitate connec-
tions in her dorm hall.
Needless to say, the role of social
media is becoming more integral to
the student experience with each
passing week that this pandemic
keeps study spaces socially dis-
tanced and a large number of stu-
dents off campus altogether. Reach-
ing out to find students with similar
interests seems to have become com-
monplace on Facebook, and Reddit
is no stranger to posts plainly asking
for new friends.
Regardless of how we manage to
find friends and maintain friend-
ships we are particularly grateful to
have made before this pandemic, it is hard to find the same
joy and make the same connections on FaceTime calls
and through Zoom breakout rooms. It is hard to navigate
the complex matters of making and maintaining friend-
ships even without a pandemic forcing time spent with
our friends and peers into one-dimensional squares on a
screen. The most practical and, indeed, the only answer is
to make the best of it.
Throughout my interviews for this article, I found reas-
surance in knowing that I am not the only one struggling
to find new friends and maintain my current friendships
right now. Over the past month, I have found comfort in
being met with unanimous enthusiasm after asking class-
mates to join a group chat for our shared class. Aside
from the placement of French pronouns and the themes
of Thomas Paine’s “Agrarian Justice,” the most valuable
thing I have learned so far this semester is that people des-
perately want to connect — it is just a matter of someone
making the first attempt.
ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN KELLY