We Found Love in a Hopeless Place

FEATURE | AROHA / LOVE

Written by Sophie Albornett (she/her) | @sophiealbornett | Contributing Writer

Art by Olive Cato (she/her) | @oliveecato | Contributing Illustrator

Halls are one of the most important parts of your first year university experience. Something as coincidental as what floor you’re put on can determine your most important relationships in a new city, at least to start. So, it figures that picking where to go becomes the most important decision 18-year-old you has made since picking your ball dress. 

All through Year 13, it felt like a professional sport trying to keep track of all the halls in Christchurch alone and the factions they each represent. While this made for a fascinating anthropological study of what the fuck goes on down south, I was at peace. AUT bound, I had a whopping two options for halls, and I was NOT paying Mayoral Drive prices (yeah, didn’t get a scholarship :/.) I was left with the shining beacon of light that is: Wellesley Student Accommodation. 

I felt like I was gearing up for war as I prepared to fly the coop, stockpiling rations (buying King Single sheets), training for in-field combat (attempting to cook so I was somewhat prepared…. emphasis on attempting), and studying the lay of the land (checking where the nearest liquor stores were). I went to my GP to cover all those pre-departure topics. Meningococcal vaxxes, mental health, sex. She gave me 100 condoms – I thought that was awfully optimistic given my previous luck. 

I was nervous to move out. I’d finally found my tribe in Year 13, and I was acutely aware that I was starting from ground zero – I had few friends (acquaintances, even) moving to Auckland, and even less to AUT. To make matters worse, WSA is an apartment building, more than a hall, so if you don’t get on with your flatmates, it feels next to impossible to meet anyone else. For someone who usually would wait to be spoken to, it was intimidating, and I thank my lucky stars that cosmic alignment kept Olive and me together. 

Olive and I’s friendship started out as all good things do – mutually. I didn’t know of her existence for the three years we’d been at high school together until she started dating my friend Lucy. She told me Olive thought my Spotify playlist was good, and since then, I knew I had to befriend her because I thought hers was cooler. A year later, she’d transcended from the liminal space of a friend's partner to a ride or die. Desperately clinging onto each other as we settled into our life in the big smoke, I wondered what this would do to our relationship. Only in our second(ish) year of real full-time friendship, moving in together was a big step. I felt like a U-Haul lesbian. Would arguing over fridge space break us? Was she secretly a clean freak? Was I secretly a clean freak? (My mum begs to differ.) 

Thankfully, we didn’t kill each other. Our first nights were coloured by Cyclone Gabrielle, with thick dark clouds blanketing our city views (we had the penthouse, thank you) as we ate air fryer food. We were adults! Almost. It felt like we were catching up on the preteen sleepovers we never shared, countless nights spent picking apart our lives, thoughts, feelings, ruminations on high school’s dramas, and fears for the coming year. Our friendship grew to truly exist between us two, rather than an association through a larger group. 

I knew I loved her because it felt so natural. I imagined this is what it was like to live with sisters, an alien concept to me and an all too familiar one for her. We clicked into each other's rhythms as if we’d been doing this for years, extending a helping hand without asking, and slapping sense back into each other when it was so desperately needed. I still feel like all of our communication happens on a higher plane, one you can only access if you’ve survived a Vesbar Toga Party. 

Platonic love is nothing new to me – I’ve been, and am, #blessed with some wonderful friends. Romantic love, however… let’s just say my reputation did not precede me. With a sparse, almost comical run during high school, I had given up. At age 18, it was settled – there simply can be nobody for me! A melodramatic, wholeheartedly held belief, as most things are then. I looked forward to a fresh slate, a new city, a fresh batch of boys – finally, my hoe phase. To my disappointment, all I saw in Bar101 were faux pearl necklaces and a cloud of BO. I spotted a cute guy in an Aphex Twin shirt at orientation, but no chance to introduce myself. Oh well, life isn’t all about boys! 

Then I met a boy. Better put, we met a boy – I did very little solo in my first year! Olive and I noticed Zach from our Media Production Foundations class also seemed to live in halls, had a Letterboxd account, and sported one familiar band tee. After some weeks of walking back to halls together-but-not, he beat us to the punch and introduced himself in the elevator. I liked that. 

The three of us would watch The Simpsons in his flat after dinner, and I loved watching Olive and Zach compare notes on their equally horrific encyclopedic knowledge of the Simpsons universe. I liked that he wasn’t embarrassed to be so knowledgeable about a cartoon. I liked his hair. I liked his enthusiasm and the way he listened to me. One warm evening, we went over to his place, and he was sporting a basketball jersey. I liked his biceps. You can figure, as I eventually did, that I liked him.

Nothing quite expedites falling in love like sharing a king single bed – there isn’t very much room to be coy. It’s also hard to make up excuses on why you can’t hang out, the sheer idea making you queasy, when you’re only separated by four storeys. Despite this, the terrifying accessibility forced me headfirst into a relationship that feels so perfect, I’ve only recently stopped second-guessing if it’s some too-good-to-be-true karmic payback for an April Fools’ joke. I really do have WSA to thank for being able to confidently say I Love You so early on.   

Meeting in halls painted the city centre with memories together. Flirty conversations along the viaduct turned into days of psychosis, finally came to first dates in arcades and restaurants, and then I became we. I still buzz whenever we go to a new restaurant together, when we talk for hours like we used to 14 floors up in the sky, and when he sends me silly TikToks. Olive never opens my TikToks – some things you just need a romantic connection for.

Halls was a uniquely intimate context that puts all your relationships on a fast track, and I’m beyond grateful that I made it out with two of my favourite people. We were each put there – in that class, that flat, that building – by sheer coincidence, but our relationships today remain rich, reliable and fun because of the love we continue to pour into each other. You might not go into halls to find love (lord knows I didn’t think I would), but I implore you not to shut yourself off from it. However it comes to you, love paints those grey city nights in kaleidoscopic colours – and it helps to have a study buddy for late nights in the library!