It’s Friday night. You’ve got dinner plans with a friend, but your Google Calendar looks like a Tetris board. There’s that paper you haven’t worked on, a problem set due at midnight and a flurry of passive-aggressive Slack messages to respond to.
You know the drill. You play the “I’m SO sorry” charade and back it up with the “Let’s DEFINITELY reschedule” card. You call, you text and you wait for your friend to say, “It’s cool.” You breathe a sigh of relief, reveling in the 21st century’s invention of the “low-maintenance friend.” It’s just oh-so-convenient. Rinse and repeat.
It’s a game we’ve gotten good at. While the age of technology and social media was supposed to bring us together, Gen Z is instead experiencing a loneliness epidemic. Over 73% of Gen Z report feeling alone sometimes or always, according to a Cigna survey. We are more disconnected now than ever. And when you enter an environment full of workaholics and overachievers, you get used to playing this game — and are even rewarded for it.
Just for a second, let’s blame the pandemic. Let’s call it “life getting in the way” and talk about “how bad the economy is.” Who can afford $10 coffee dates these days anyway? But five years after the fact, we can’t avoid accountability. It’s time to accept our part in our loss of community.
As my freshman year at Northwestern comes to a close, I’ve been forced to face the reality of my bad habits. I can admit that I’ve got a knack for leaving messages on delivered, sending calls to voicemail, bowing out at the last minute and making promises I shouldn’t. I’ve lost touch with people I used to talk to every day. I’ve become a stranger to some of my best friends.
The truth is, the “I can’t make it” texts pile up. Your absence has an impact. Your cancellations have consequences. It’s not enough to chalk it up to everything else around us. Sometimes, you have to realize it’s just you.
This ugly realization came to me on a summer night when I was freshly 18 with no prospects for the weekend after my high school graduation. I didn’t know who to call, nor was I sure if I had anyone to call. My workaholism had caught up to me. I knew I had to fix something.
But how? What does “building community” look like in college?
I’m not going to lie, at first, it might be a lot. It can be overwhelming to set aside time to get lunch with a friend, smile and say hi to your neighbors in your dorm and make small talk with your seatmates in class. It will take work, effort and time. You will have to sacrifice the convenience of doing everything alone.
Someday, it’ll become second nature.
After a certain amount of practice, it becomes a habit to call a hometown friend when you’ve got a spare ten minutes just to chat about what Hugo’s up to out in Boston.
You’ll bump into your seatmate outside of class and turn your once uneventful Wednesdays into “Grub with Jack and Meg.” You’ll plan surprise parties for Cassidey and Angelina, the girls from down the hall who are now your friends. And you’ll ask yourself: “How did I get here?”
The work of fostering and nurturing friendships can be tiring. It might even piss you off. You will eventually get into a fight about which restaurant looks better for Instagram thirst traps for your birthday dinner or the cute sweater your friend borrowed and lost. You might not speak to each other for weeks over a girls’ night gone wrong because someone dragged their boyfriend along.
And in a healthy friendship (I emphasize healthy!) you won’t just be giving without receiving. This is a promise I can make — the work is worth it.
In return, you’ll find someone to fill the empty seats of your comedy show that’s totally going to get picked up by Netflix. You’ll have someone to send you the notes from the lecture you overslept, without judging your poor sleep habits. You’ll get people who will listen to you talk about the person who’s never going to text you back, hold your hair back after a rough night and be your shoulder to cry on when life really does get bad.
You’ll have a community to lean on.
Know that from here on out, it doesn’t get easier. What will maintaining your friendships and relationships look like when you get a boss muttering about deliverables, bills stacking up dramatically and a baby screaming your precious sleep away?
For now, take advantage of your youth and your freedom. Catch up with old friends. Make new ones. Life is what happens when you finally say “yes” to those plans.
Start this Friday night.
Katareena Roska is a Medill freshman. She can be contacted at KatareenaRoska2028@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
