Making a New Friend – Oxford Fall 2022

Making a New Friend

I am aware that this blog post is meant to give you an overview of what I did and what I learned, but I am convinced nothing I say will do it justice except for the tale of one singular night. I will tell you about a time when I made a new friend in Oxford. It was a Thursday and one of the first cold Thursdays that we were experiencing since arriving in Oxford. It was about 6:30 in the evening, so naturally, I was on my way to Student Night at St. Aldates Church. By that time, I had come to look forward to those times because I had found that, somehow, surrounded by mostly strangers, St. Aldates was one of the few places in Oxford that I felt the most seen and accepted.

When I get there, I choose a random circle of chairs to join in an effort to meet more people. It was only after I sat down and situated myself that I was able to actually take in the faces of those in my circle, and like a camera coming into focus, I found there were two people I had met before and four people who were strangers up until that point. It’s funny how easily the label of being a stranger can dissolve. We go through the typical introductions; name, what you’re studying, how you found your way to St. Aldates, etc. I made a couple of new friends that night, but there was a person sitting in the circle that carved a divot into my brain that night, and probably even into my heart, that I will focus on. His name was Blik, or at least I thought his name was Blik for nearly the entire night before I realized that he was a boy named Blake with an accent from Northern Ireland that made the rather common name sound foreign to me. He is a freshman at Oxford Brooks this year, and it was his first time coming to St. Aldates. Another girl in our group had met him through mutual friends at a different church earlier that week and invited him to Student Night. I am glad she did.

Immediately I could tell he was rather quiet and reserved yet altogether good and genuine. What he possessed in abundance somehow lived within his reservations, but that seemed to turn his goodness into a sort of essence as opposed to something concrete. A mist surrounded him and gently wrapped around those he was near. He reminds me a lot of my younger brother, who is the light of my life, so I have found that I can’t help but be impacted by the few that possess the same qualities. We went most of the time during Student Night without actually talking because we were sitting across from each other, and it was so loud that it would be impossible to hear each other even if we tried. But I did learn that he was majoring in zoology, which I instinctively knew had a story with it.

It wasn’t until we all decided to go to a pub together afterward that I learned that he had grown up on a farm in Northern Ireland. He told me about fond memories he had growing up and not-so-fond memories he had. Eventually, he told me that he had lived in Oxford all of last year, which I was curious about because I knew he was a freshman this year. And as gently and casually as one could deliver this reality, he explained that he had actually started his freshman year last year but had to drop out because his brother had died. And I think it was in that moment that I felt the weight of what it was to meet someone for the first time; to make a new friend; to suddenly be made aware of another person’s reality, and at the same time be made aware of how selfish mine is at times.

There was pain in his eyes, but there was also kindness, hope, and a sort of humble magic. I felt trusted enough to know that about him, but somehow I knew that was less about me and more about how trusting he was as a person. And I knew the only appropriate response to that moment was to consider him my friend and myself a friend to him.

Scones with clotted cream and jam! This was one of my favorite pastimes.

A picture from an exhibition inside the Oxford University Church that resonated with me.