Elina Mallia reflects on the unexpected connections that have shaped her time at university.

My friends and I often joke that everyone at university is connected. Somehow, out of the thousands of people in our year group, we’re likely a few degrees of separation from each one. Perhaps this is statistically likely: between accommodations, societies, and courses, circles are bound to overlap.

But I think this interconnectedness points to something more. That in life, and especially at university, we unexpectedly meet people who become irreplaceable, just out of pure chance. I believe we find those we are meant to, at the exact point we need them. People we may have encountered before who come back into our lives when the time is right. And I’m lucky enough to have found some of my closest female friendships in this way.

Two of the girls I now live with and love dearly are on the same course as me. We’d vaguely known of each other before, but the first time we had a proper conversation was at our end-of-first-year formal. Four months later, I unknowingly became friends with a girl who lived with them, causing us and two other friends to grow close and decide to live with each other for our final year.

The funny thing is, the first night we met, we’d briefly talked about our hopes for third-year housing. We didn’t anticipate that, a year onwards, we would be planning living room decorations, watching Strictly on Saturdays, and chatting about anything and everything into the early hours together.

As each week goes by, the love I feel for these women constantly amplifies. I could wax lyrical about how much I love each and every one, but what amazes me most is how subconsciously attuned they are to everyone’s emotions. I’ve found that, on the days I need it the most, they, without any knowledge of this, make me laugh so hard I forget whatever was on my mind.

But I shouldn’t be surprised; they’ve done this for me, right from the start. They wouldn’t have known it, but they appeared at a time where other areas of my life had shifted, quietly making up for something lost. If we’re lucky enough, people come into our lives and help us through difficult experiences.

To me, the beauty of female friendships is the non-judgemental, empathetic, and caring spaces they create when doing this, and how it seems they pick the perfect moment to appear. The girl who is one of my closest friends, who understands every part of me, was the first person I properly talked to on my course. We met in the first week of university at a course social — one I nearly didn’t go to. I remember feeling so uplifted and full after having a conversation with her, and so in awe of the way she carried herself. We gradually got closer throughout the year, realising our mirroring values, perspectives, and personalities. It takes me a while to be myself around people; with her, it was never difficult.

Even now, I constantly think about how amazing it is to be truly comfortable with someone. How I can say my exact stream of consciousness without censoring any of it out of fear of judgement. How she knows the way my mind works and gives me advice perfectly tailored to it. How one conversation with her when I’m upset makes everything fall into place. To know and have someone as intelligent, hilarious, and empathetic as herself has been one of the biggest joys of my young adult years. And besides from loving who she is and the time we spend together, she has helped me grow and understand myself in ways I didn’t know I could.

My faith in coincidences stems from this. Because out of all the courses and universities we could’ve picked, I ended up in the same place as someone who feels like the other half of my brain. Some might say coincidences are just forcing meaning on meaningless encounters. But the world is made up of people who have found the unexplainably perfect person for them.

For me, that is enough to generate meaning. Because you can never predict when or where you may meet someone like this, and the fact that it happens to so many, so constantly, acts as a reminder that these connections are out there waiting to emerge. In a time of young adulthood, filled with unpredictability and uncertainty, it is reassuring to know that there are so many people still left to meet — and so many opportunities to do so in these chance encounters.

So, in defence of coincidences, and a romanticised valuation of them: I would have never met my friend of 9 years if we weren’t placed next to each other in register order; not grown close to my home friends if I hadn’t been in the same science class as one, if we hadn’t chosen the same acting class, or the same university. Even if I’m just looking for coincidences here, it’s given so much meaning, love, and sentimentality to the beautiful friendships I have; that they almost couldn’t have been, but they are. And, as I write this, hearing my friends’ laughter echo up from the kitchen to my room, I know I owe it all to these “random” connections.