I met her in Financial Math class.
I was a History major. She was a French major. Neither of us wanted to be there; we were both just trying to satisfy the university's area requirement for a mathematics course.
We ended up sitting next to each other in the front row on the first day of class. It seemed like we were the only two people in the class that didn't have a friend to talk to, so I decided to take a chance and introduce myself. And I am so glad that I did.
She didn't seem like the type of girl that I would normally be friends with. When she answered my question, she seemed to be quiet and reserved, and maybe just a bit disinterested. I began to despair that I would have to endure this class without the comfort of companionship.
But with the approach of the first homework assignment, it became clear that any partnership would be better than working alone. The professor encouraged us to form study groups, so she and I exchanged our contact information and met up to check our answers. We started talking at that first meeting and found that we had a lot in common. We both hated math. We both went to church. We were both interested in fashion, art, travel, tea, and so many other random things. Soon, I found myself having conversations with her before and after class.
The more I talked to her, the more I realized just how special she really was. She loved to cook, but never followed a recipe. She always wore heels; in fact, I was beginning to think that she didn't own a single pair of shoes with less than an inch of heel. She could totally rock brightly-colored lipstick, even on a normal day of class. She was an artist; in less than a minute, she sketched an incredibly lifelike doodle of our math professor in the margin of her notes. She only wrote in cursive.
And she was interested in me, too. Since she was a bit shy herself, she thought it was awesome that I was acting in a play in the university's theater department. When I told her that I lived in the international students' residence hall, she asked me about the different cultural events we hosted, and checked to see if we had any mutual friends in the international student community. When I mentioned that I was a huge classic movie geek, she was intrigued, and expressed her desire to learn more about classic film.
I didn't have any other friends that enjoyed old films like I did, so I invited her over one day to watch Casablanca. We both enjoyed it so much that we started watching a classic film each week. We would make tea, eat baked goods, enjoy a movie that was made pre-1960, and commiserate over our love for all things classy and vintage. And that was how we became friends.
That was two years ago this January. Since we met in Financial Math, she has studied abroad for several months and taken a semester off school, but our friendship and classy movie nights are still going strong. She's one of the most fun and loyal friends I have. I am constantly amazed by how classy and creative she is. Even though we're both graduating this May, and we'll probably end up in completely different places within the next few months, I know that we'll definitely keep in touch. But I still can't believe that we owe our friendship to a math class.
