friendships

I stood in front of the mirror analyzing whether or not my mom jeans and crop top gave off friendly, cool-yet-chill vibes. My roommates didn’t want to go to the fifth meet-up organized through the “Transfers in the City” GroupMe, so I plucked up the courage to ask my neighbor upstairs if she wanted to come with me. The week prior, I had flown to New York from Michigan in my hazmat suit that I bought from Amazon for $20. Now, I was in a hot, sticky apartment just off of Broadway and La Salle, eager to make new connections.

“I'm lonely,” I told my therapist sitting in one of the CPS offices in Lerner. “I just feel so lonely sometimes.” The moment took hold of me, and I was surprised that I was saying it out loud. I hadn't even acknowledged it myself until that moment: I, Sabina Jones, the talkative, social, loudmouth, was lonely, and I had been lonely for as long as I could remember. When I said it, I was surprised that this feeling that had melted into my everyday being had a name. I was lonely, but aren't most of us?

Chinese and Japanese mythologies share a belief based on legends involving a “red thread of fate.” According to this belief, people who are meant to meet at some point in life are bound together by a red string tied around their ankles or little fingers. The two people on both ends of the cord may meet other people, travel the world, or cross paths without noticing—tangling and knotting the red string numerous times, but never breaking it. Although this belief is most often used to refer to an inevitability of romantic partnerships—the “soulmate” idea—I personally consider it reflected in my most valuable friendships.

Of all my indulgences, weaknesses, and downright misuses of money, I prefer my penchant for coffee: a habit I only developed at Columbia. A cup of coffee is mundane. It’s often overpriced on campus, and it is an automated morning ritual. But now that I have graduated, I cannot help but realize how essential coffee was to my social life and, more importantly, to my mental health.

If there’s one archaic saying that almost every Columbia student understands on a painfully personal level, it would probably be the phrase “in a New York minute.”

I’d like to use this opportunity to set the record straight: that girl you see me with all the time is NOT my girlfriend. Two of my best friends are girls, and I cannot count the number of times I’ve been asked if I’m dating one of them. I don’t think either of their actual boyfriends mind, considering they’re both in long-distance relationships, and my chronic “cock-blocking” is a great deterrent for potential suitors. However, I’m frustrated by the constant assumption and mislabeling. I’m not a boyfriend… I’m just a boy who loves his friends.

So, I end my first year at Columbia exactly the way my mother imagined I would when she signed off on my deposit last April: sitting in a bar. I am at The Bitter End, a famed music venue long past the days when it hosted artists such as Bob Dylan. Deep within the recesses of NYU territory, I have now chosen to reflect on the last year at Columbia (the irony is truly shameless.)