By Zahra Nazar

Disclaimer: Much like the friends you told your parents you made during orientation, this story is completely fabricated.  

A new study from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) this week has confirmed every new student on campus has already found at least one friend—except you. 

The study, conducted by The Lab of Observational Network & Engagement Levels in Youth (LONELY), surveyed over 48,000 TMU students and found that nearly everyone has formed a friend group, posted them on Instagram to make their old friends jealous and made a big group chat where the name is a reference to an inside joke. The study also showed some have even successfully brought their multi-ethnic friend-groups to sit on the freshly-mowed grass after class and throw around a frisbee.

“Every single person we spoke to said they’d met some really great people that weren’t just great because they were the only options they had,” said lead researcher Dr. Noah Lott. 

While your classmates have effortlessly met lifelong friends through orientation events, residence, and the most seemingly daunting method “just talking to people,” you have spent the first week perfecting the art of avoiding contact with any seemingly close-knit friend group, which surprisingly required a great amount
of skill. 

According to the study, you walk around campus wearing headphones without any sound  just so people won’t come up to you, you are curious about posters displayed around campus but refuse to look up at them in case somebody notices and tries to talk to you, you receive seemingly important emails while standing in crowded places so you can observe your phone instead of somebody else’s face and you would rather get lost around campus than ask for help with directions.

“Honestly, it’s astonishing how effortlessly they can avoid contact with another person,” Lott said. “Most students have at least two people they can rely on to grab food with at a place with AI menus.” 

Meanwhile, you have zero and the only thing you can rely on is making awkward eye contact with the security guard on the eighth floor at the Library while pretending to study. 

First-year chemistry student Bea Phorrell said making friends has been surprisingly easy, despite moving here less than two weeks ago. 

“I just sat beside someone during my first class and started talking,” Phorrell said. “It’s pretty simple if you ignore every instinct in your brain and just blurt out words in hopes that the person next to you is nice and not one of those people that would raise their hand and tell the professor you were talking during the lecture.” 

When prompted to give advice for students who may be struggling with meeting people, Phorrell said, “Just go up to someone and start blabbering on about how Love Island is the best show in the world or the worst show in the world. You’ll have to scope out their vibe first.”