Nyobi, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer
What happens when you’re far removed from a community you took the time to build and now you’re in a new place where you have to build again?
Being away from your community can sometimes feel unbearable. Knowing that you’ve cultivated a place to share laughs, emotions, ideas, frustrations and good news, all while longing to be part of that space again, can feel heavy. A palpable distance amasses; you miss your community and resent missing out on them. Now you’re tasked with the challenge of creating a whole new one in a place you’ve never been. Not only are you charged with creating a new community, but also maintaining it simultaneously with the one you had before. Talk about a feat.
If you’re an introvert like me, the thought of making new friends can feel scary, daunting even—especially when you miss those back home waiting for you. The thing about life, though, is that it constantly changes. It can be as simple as needing to replace your decade-old cornerstone printer or as big as moving out of the country to study abroad. Either way, something is bound to change.
When that change involves the people you were surrounded by, you’re faced with the task of creating new connections, at the risk of things being awkward or never forming any at all. But what if you do? What if the connections happen much more easily than you anticipated? Suddenly, you have acquaintances. Even more unexpectedly, those acquaintances grow into friendships. The simple act of nervously asking to exchange WhatsApps and having it turn into a coffee meetup proved to be worth it.
You find yourself praising WhatsApp for being a social equalizer, a universal place to channel communication. You’re even happy it now has an “Updates” page. There, you see little Milo back home guarding his new beach toy and chuckle at your roommate admiring their first snowfall. In chat, you suggest to your new friend more coffee spots to try and applaud your best friend’s status for wearing the new earrings you bought them. WhatsApp becomes your tool for maintenance—your efficiency multiplier. It helps you create new friendships while staying connected to the old ones you wait to reunite with.
It helps you organize trips to the theatre and create a small group for in-person meetups and virtual ones alike. Beyond bonding through schoolwork grievances with classmates, it introduces a non-traditional way of staying in touch: a WhatsApp pen-pal group. You use it to let your pen pal know you’ve just mailed a new letter and that it should arrive soon. Others in the group see your message and are reminded to send their designated pal a letter before the month ends. The app bridges communication and solidifies it.As life does what it does best, things become more nuanced and we’re left to find creative ways to sustain what remains. Maintaining the community we build takes effort, but when it’s mutual, the once-daunting fear to communitize softens into reassurance. You ponder what might have happened had you never taken the risk and the connections you may have never formed. Weeks after returning home, you smile at the growing stack of letters you and a once-acquainted classmate exchanged, grateful that you took the chance after all.