Thank You, Study Abroad: I Believe in Soulmates

What happens when three women and two men from five different dorms, five different home states, and five different majors become friends in London, England? They embark on a week-long journey to Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary together, of course. And they manage to emerge on the other side even closer friends than when they began their adventure.

One of the most beautiful things about the study abroad program at Notre Dame is the social aftermath. I first noticed it at the start of junior year: my friends who were freshly minted members of the senior class returned to campus from their summer breaks particularly energized. This could be attributed to a myriad of causes, of course: particularly enjoyable summers, time spent with friends and family away from stressful schoolwork, the opportunity to return to their home under the Dome for one last hurrah…but this particular energy very clearly fed off of one another.

It was the reunions in the hallways of my dorm between people I didn’t know knew each other that I noticed. The seniors running across South Quad and shouting across North Dining Hall to greet people walking in different groups and chatting in various circles. Somehow, the whole of the senior class seemed to know each other come the great Return to Campus. Boundaries had disappeared. Social groups had merged and morphed and melted together.

I have a theory that all of this is due to the study abroad program at Notre Dame, and that it happens, or at least has the potential to happen, every year. It’s part of what makes senior year at ND so sweet: whether students study abroad first semester, second semester, over the summer, or not at all, new friendships flourish as people come and go from campus and study abroad destinations all over the world.

I feel incredibly fortunate to know that this study abroad social effect is already shaping me in a big way. Take my flat (aka apartment) in London, for example: six of us live together from five different dorms, two different home countries, and six completely different friend groups and activity sets on campus. Perhaps some of us could have become friends at Notre Dame through a mutual friend or by chance, but up until junior year none of us knew each other beyond being distant acquaintances. It took randomly sorting us into a six-person flat in London, England for us to become friends and incredibly compatible roommates. When we begin introducing one another to the friends we so often chat about after we return to campus senior year, the study abroad social effect will begin to run its course: friendships will breed friendships. Social groups will merge and morph and melt together. We will continue to develop close relationships with people we never would have met otherwise, not because we are incompatible, but because we never had someone or something nudging us towards one another before. 

Flat dinner: Photo by Laura Gruszka

I can point to so many friendships that have developed during this first half of my time abroad with a similar air of awe. They have happened unbelievably naturally, and many have developed because we had heard about one another from mutual friends on campus. Many of these friendships are with people that I know I will be close to for the rest of my life. What a crazy thing to think, that it was London that brought us together at last; sometimes I wonder how in the world I have not had them in my life during my whole college journey. And yet…

Study abroad has made me believe in soulmates. Not in the romantic sense, but in the friendship sense. I believe that God forms people towards special, close connections with others through life experiences, personalities, interests, etc., and that this process is gradual and lifelong. Sometimes, it takes something like London to act as a catalyst for friendships between such soulmates, who have been shaped towards the potential of being excellent companions for one another. I had the privilege of traveling across central Europe with four of my soulmates this past week for spring break.

In these four people and in many more from the London program, I have found lifelong friendships. Many of us knew one another before coming to London, and they were all people I hoped to bond with prior to the start of the semester, but I could not have predicted that we would seamlessly form an unbelievably compatible group dynamic fit for journeying across Europe together for nine days. Over spring break, God and these four people were my only constants, and that was perfectly fine by me.

My spring break travel group knows me so well. They could tell you my favorite “fill-in-the-blank” because we have quizzed one another on endless random favorite things. They could share with you my hopes and dreams and what makes me sad or frustrated, because we have played silly would-you-rather games and shared in deep late-night conversations about life. They could tell you what my daily routine looks like and which foods I crave on a regular basis and what sets my heart ablaze and what makes me belly laugh until I cry, because they have witnessed all of these things firsthand. And I think I could tell you many of these things about them: we have learned how to know and love each other quite well quite quickly, because that is how this whole soulmate thing works. When people are successfully pursuing the selves God has created them to be and striving to align their desires with His, friendships with likeminded and likehearted others doing the same become practically effortless.

The close friendships I have had the opportunity to form while abroad owe a lot to London: our mutual study abroad circumstances were certainly a facilitator for many of the relationships I have developed this semester, and I cannot pretend that they all would have formed naturally had I been on campus for all of junior year. Yet these friendships are not dependent on London. The things that have formed the basis of our friendships – endless laughter, silly and serious conversation, celebrating Mass, cooking and eating delicious food, cozying up with popcorn and blankets for movie nights – are some of my favorite things to do in “real life.” They have nothing at all to do with the location in which they happen, which proved true for the five spring break adventurers as we tested the waters of our friendships in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest this past week. I am sure this stability of friendship beyond London will be consistent with many other “abroad” friendships, too. London gifted us with the opportunity to be friends, but eventual absence from London will not prevent us from remaining friends.

When I asked one of my best friends here if he remembers when we weren’t friends, he replied “no,” to which I responded, “yeah, me neither.” And then he said something that summarizes my thoughts on friendships formed as a result of the study abroad program pretty well: “we were always friends; we just didn’t know it yet.”