Chances are, if you’re an incoming first year, you’ll have spent the last two weeks hearing about Freshers’ Week from parents, relatives and anyone your mam has told you got into Trinity. “Freshers is huge!” They say, “You go out every night and get a cough that lasts until Christmas! You make the friends who are going to help you settle into life in college! You’d better learn to budget quickly,” (God help you if you don’t in Dublin) and then they slip you €20 to buy a pint and enjoy yourself with all those new friends you’re going to make. 

Doubtless, you will want to heed their advice. Yet, you may also find yourself nervous about making friends in an unfamiliar environment. Perhaps you want to throw yourself into the Dublin social scene but are unsure of how to go about it. Alternatively, you could be seeking the path of least resistance, opting to seek out pals who would rather head to the library each night, than be out on the town. And naturally, in attempting to make friends, you might fear getting stuck in a makeshift group of people you don’t actually like – swept away by your willingness to socialise  and a fear of confrontation. But fear not, freshers! I shall guide you. By Refreshers’ Week, hopefully you’ll be spending your time with the group you’ve (fortunately) managed to whittle your social circle down to, and not avoiding the people you met during that fateful first week. 

The best way to make friends during Freshers’ Week is to go to meet-ups and events, and the least terrifying way to go to an event packed with people you don’t know is to have someone to go with. You might want to text that random kid who was in your physics class and ask them for a coffee, or use social media to find other freshers who are excited to meet fellow students and drop them a DM. It’s normal to feel a bit awkward if you don’t know anyone, and chances are that the person you’re reaching out to will be happy to have potentially made a new friend. In the absence of a ready-made pal I recommend attending an event for a society you’re interested in, or asking your flatmates if they want to go for a drink. You automatically have something in common with these people, and it’s beneficial to get to know them. Take advantage of the systems that have been constructed to support your social life in college and allow you to form convenient relationships. Whether or not these initial efforts result in a lasting friendship, it can’t hurt to try.

Once you have assembled a motley crew with whom to make the most of these most formative weeks, adopt the mindset of the committed fresher. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like clubbing! It doesn’t matter if you like clubbing and know that clubbing in Dublin is shit! If you lean into the cringiness of the experience, you can use that cringiness to meet people. Sign up for something new, something that’s never interested you before and try it unreservedly with a group of people you’ve just met. Even when it occurs to you that you’re essentially being herded from event to event (‘this one will be class!’, a girl you met last night assured you, ‘everyone going is really cool’), and that nothing has felt real since you arrived last Friday, it’s important to maintain a boundless enthusiasm for pub crawls and Fixr tickets. If you don’t, then by the following week you might realise that, by not attending every single event possible, you feel like you have become a pariah. Instagram will show you how that person you met at a random event and their friend that you stalked online have made their best friends for the rest of their lives. They are both the most beautiful and cool people you’ve ever seen. They are wearing eye-catching clothes and attending all the parties and you are sitting in your kitchen explaining to one of your flatmates that you cannot, in fact, put a ceramic bowl on a hob in order to heat the food inside. Remain calm and explain the joys of the microwave.

Soon, you’ll realise you have made friends, and you need to get rid of them. That guy you made conversation with once is in half your modules. Now he is following you and won’t stop mentioning how he would’ve gotten 625 if he hadn’t been hungover the day of his Irish Oral. This is not a reason to stop attending your lectures. This is a perfect example of why you should attend your S2S meet-up so you know more than one person in the classroom. In the meantime, learn to stop making eye contact with him. Let your gaze pass over him if he tries to get your attention. If I can avoid the girl who told me her exact mark in Maths Paper One on the Luas, you can shake him off.

Post reading week, maybe it occurs to you that going to the Academy twice a week is actually your worst nightmare. Or, alternatively, you’ve realised that you’ve spent more time alone in your room than you’d like, and that you want out. Good for you! There’s a learning curve with everything. For the reformed raver seeking respite, if you do take a break for a while, your lungs might stop feeling like they’re about to collapse, and you may obtain a chance to reassess the few-too-many friendships you’ve gathered in your event hopping. The newly-christened social butterfly, on the other hand, has picked the perfect time to emerge. Fellow freshers have calmed down and adjusted to their new pace of life, and won’t be attending events with the vigour that originally scared you away. You’ll be able to meet people at an event you’re actually interested in attending and make friends with someone you have something in common with. That’s as simple as it gets – you should find people you like, and enjoy the time you spend with them.

Honestly, the best way to make friends during Freshers’ Week is the same way you make friends anywhere; step out of your comfort zone and talk to people you don’t know, pursue things you care about, be nice to people, and be interested in what they have to say.  And, if you find that you simply have nothing in common with someone or, for whatever reason, you don’t enjoy their presence, that’s perfectly normal. Politely withdrawing from the ‘friendship’ is enough. It’s not that deep.

With luck, you’ll survive the week and emerge on the other side with a severely weakened immune system and a couple of people you consider friends. And, if not, there’s always Refreshers’….