When Flatmates Turn into Friends

In this life, we meet a lot of people. Sometimes, there comes a moment when you stop becoming acquaintances and turn into friends. How does it happen?

I think I figured it out, when I had that moment with my flatmates the weekend before the last.

But first, let’s backtrack a bit. I moved into my current flat in November of last year. I was already friends with Maybelle, my roommate, but I didn’t know the other guys. They were all nice guys, but our different schedules made it such that we would rarely see each other at home. And even if we did, we always limited ourselves to small talk, fluff pieces like, “Oh, you don’t have work today?” or politely offering our food when someone happens to be around while we’re eating.

Then Poi moved out to a condo which was shouldered by his company, and for his belated farewell, we decided to have dinner and drinks at a place called 5 Drunken Rabbits at a nearby park. We had some laughs over baby back ribs and beers. I had Tiger Radler, their new lemon-flavoured beer, because I can’t stand the normal kind.

Josh was supposed to join us, but he got caught up with other friends and suggested that we continue the night in our flat instead, that he had a bottle of Jack Daniels which we could hit.

At first Maybelle and I didn’t really want to do this because we were already sleepy cough signs of aging cough as it was already around 1am by then. But we didn’t know how to say no to the boys, so we figured we’d just drink a couple of shots or so, and headed to the living room where Josh had set up the drinks.

We took that picture after we realized we don’t have a group shot. Josh was going to set up his tripod but in the end I said that would take too much time and we could use my monopod instead. He said, “I’ve always wanted to try using a monopod!” and wielded it for all the shots we took that night. We took a lot of shots. I meant pictures, but yes, drink shots too.

“Let’s play a game,” I suggested. “The one who takes the shot also takes the hot seat.” They all agreed to the idea, and we ended up asking very personal questions. In the span of a few hours, we accomplished something that half a year of living inside the same box had failed to do – we started to become friends.

Haven’t you noticed that you start to feel closer to a person when you start sharing secrets with them? I think this is when friendship begins.

Of course, I may be wrong. I mean, what about psychiatrists and lawyers and stuff? Oh boy, this analogy is starting to unravel pretty quick. Whatever. That night, that was how I felt. So I suppose this is one of those it depends on what scenario kind of things.

Anyway. We had so much fun talking that we didn’t even realize that it was already 5am. Remember how earlier, Maybelle and I were sleepy and wanted to just stay for a while and all? Huh. Maybe friendship begins when you start to enjoy spending time with people and choose them over sleep.

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