When I first stepped onto campus as a freshman, I was bright-eyed and ready to take on college life alongside my fellow members of the class of 2026. In the bustle of my orientation week, I surrounded myself with people all the time, eager to make new friends and explore the campus as a student for the first time. This new, extroverted personality I discovered was one I tried to embrace.
College was the time to turn over a new leaf, right?
But in my excitement, I constantly pushed aside the quiet desire for some alone time, in favor of grabbing a meal with other freshmen or exploring the Diag during Festifall in the humid late August weather. Although a recent personality test revealed that I am more extroverted than introverted, my freshman self most definitely did not find this true, as my social battery was draining fast before Welcome Week was even over.
Amid the chaos of the first few weeks of freshman year, I found myself wanting a space for myself. But what did I want this space to look like? This space can look different for everyone. It might be discovered in the privacy of your dorm room or perhaps a hidden nook on the third floor of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library (if you are lucky enough to find one).
Yet every time I tried to answer this question, my mind was crippled by FOMO, and the even deeper fear of not maintaining stable friendships. In the struggle of juggling classes, campus events and newly formed friendships, I needed to better understand what I wanted my “space” to look like, without somehow missing out on fun stuff with my friends.
This led me to hot girl walks.
“Hot girl walks” are long and self-empowering walks outside which I rebranded my usual walks as. My first “official” hot girl walk happened in mid-September of freshman year, and they quickly became a staple of my college routine. With every step I took, campus buildings slowly melted into the residential neighborhoods on East Madison Street, Washtenaw Avenue and Packard Street. The air became a little cooler, and the leaves became more crisp and plentiful on the ground.
During one of my hot girl walks in October, I glanced through the window of Slurping Turtle and I thought, “A solo dinner would be nice.” This idea became another, although more infrequent, staple of my freshman year, where I chose a random Friday evening after receiving my paycheck to splurge on dinner for myself at a restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor.
These outings – whether it was a Kerrytown hot girl walk or a burger from Ashley’s – slowly but surely became the “space” I so desperately craved for myself in the fast-paced world of college. Choosing to make the time for myself to enjoy what was around me – the sight of brilliantly red and orange leaves on the ground of South Forest Avenue or the taste of Rich JC’s kimchi fried rice – showed me I could still have fun and experience college life on my own.
Don’t get me wrong, I still very much enjoyed the company of friends and others around me. I also acknowledge that everyone’s college experience is unique, and everyone is different in terms of their level of introversion. I was fortunate enough to meet fantastic people these past two years, some of whom I’m grateful to call my closest friends. But, my advice to the class of 2028 isn’t about how to find these friends (an article from The Michigan Daily’s 2023 Orientation Edition already discusses this well).
To those in the class of 2028, take the time to appreciate how to be by yourself. This doesn’t mean you have to lock yourself in your room — you can take a hot girl walk to explore campus like I do or do something leisurely in a public area like the Diag. Find the space and time to intentionally do things for yourself on or off campus for your own enjoyment, and be okay with doing so. This last part was the hardest part for me (FOMO hit hard) and something I, along with many others, still struggle with. But on this campus of more than 50,000 students, learning to make time for yourself will hopefully make Ann Arbor feel more like home.
Summer Managing News Editor Eilene Koo can be reached at ekoo@umich.edu.
The post Hot girl walks and solo dinners: Spending time for yourself with intention appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
Leave a Reply