AStA’s friendship speed dating event reveals students’ strong desire to connect with others
The harsh weather - temperatures near freezing, driving rain and the first snow of the year - has subsided, or at least it has stopped raining. Hence, the only thing the 25 or so students have to contend with on this November evening is the cold as they stand in two circles in front of the General Students’ Committee (AStA) building. Mostly in pairs, those in the inner circle chat to those in the outer circle. To make sure everything runs smoothly, Jessica Aufderheide interrupts them every few minutes with a flash from a bicycle light and asks them a new question, such as "Early riser or night owl?". She also prompts the outer circle to rotate one person to the left so that two new students are facing each other. This principle of rotation to facilitate multiple exchanges has been around since the late 1990s and is called "speed dating". In this case, it’s not about finding a partner, but about making friends - at the invitation of Jessica Aufderheide and Annalisa Biehl, the AStA’s health officer.
But why are the participants standing outside on such a cold evening? The answer: an unexpectedly high level of interest in friendship speed dating. "We didn’t know whether three people would turn up or twenty, but we never thought there would be this many," enthused Jessica Aufderheide. The group standing outside is just some of the seventy or eighty students who responded to the call via Instagram and newsletter - the others are standing in the L-shaped corridor of the building and the room originally intended for the event. It resembles an over-publicised student party. Students are standing or sitting close together, some on the floor, chatting, playing Uno, painting cloth bags and mandalas.
The motives:
"Although friendships cannot be planned and established in advance, studying is a great opportunity to get to know a lot of people," explains sociologist Professor Matthias Grundmann, "enabling friendships to develop." Many (former) students will be familiar with the key message of the Münster-based expert in the sociology of social relationships. But even in a place as vibrant and open as the University of Münster, there are still barriers to getting to know people. "I’m here to meet people outside my course," says 20-year-old Daniela, who came with her student friend Leah. Martin explains that at the beginning of his master’s programme, he noticed how the smaller number of seminars and courses, the lack of compulsory attendance and the individual timetables had an impact on getting to know other students. For Nico, a chemistry student in his ninth semester, the culture of the subject is also a challenge. "Chemistry is a lonely degree programme." The lecture halls are usually empty, as many of his fellow students prefer to study on their own, and there is also a high drop-out rate. The organisers, Annalisa Biehl and Jessica Aufderheide, are aware of similar aspects that have made getting to know each other more difficult or even changed it, such as increasing digitalisation, the coronavirus pandemic and the decentralised structure of the university with its widely scattered faculties and institutes.
There are also personal challenges, as in the case of 19-year-old Kateryna, who describes herself as rather introverted and insecure, so it takes some effort for her to approach people. Clara, a teaching degree student, says that a year ago, as a first-year student, she "missed the opportunity" to meet lots of new people. After the orientation week, many groups and circles of friends had already formed and it was difficult to join them. It was also noticeable on this evening that some people were looking up train connections on their smartphones, such as Lilly, who commutes an hour each way to university.
The opportunities:
According to Annalisa Biehl, the fact that so many interested people turned up that evening shows that there is a desire for socialising. In other words, there’s a need for contact and an offer to meet that need, resulting in a successful friendship speed-dating session. For Matthias Grundmann, "friendships are formed through similarities or points of contact between the personal and socio-cultural experiences" of two people. This is exactly what the participants are looking for as they ask each other their name, age, field of study, and place and type of residence, spinning more and more threads of conversation. For more than two hours, the young people, who appear to be as diverse in origin and subject as the university itself, get to know their peers. Many exchange mobile phone numbers, follow each other on Instagram or arrange their first dates in the student dining hall - all’in the hope of making new friends. According to Matthias Grundmann, the benefit of friendships lies in "relatively reliable and selfless social relationships that provide stability in life". Or as Jessica Aufderheide puts it: "It can’t hurt to meet more nice people."
This article is taken from the university newspaper wissen
