The day I met my college best friend, Meaghan, I knew she was going to be my person.
It was a couple of days into my freshman year. We were at a pregame together, and I just instantly knew this girl was going to be one of my best friends for life.
But my impressions of Meg was more than just a gut feeling. According to research, it was SCIENCE.
A 2006 study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships that tracked college freshmen from the time they met to a few months later found that the ones who immediately connected were more likely to stay in touch (shocker).
The researchers believe this is less because first impressions are actually accurate, and more because we trust our own instincts. We use good first impressions as a motivation to make the friendship work.
We use good first impressions as a motivation to make the friendship work.
What I liked right away about Meg was that she was chill, equally obsessed with her friends from home and got my admittedly weird sense of humor. The girl was dope.
So, at the time, I did what any drunk college freshman desperate for friends would do: I told her, "I think we're gonna be best friends."
AND GUESS WHAT, YOU GUYS? She had the same feeling about me.
Now it's five years later, and we're STILL best friends.
While some might call our story a tale of two tragically homesick freshmen losers, I prefer to call it friendship at first sight. And now, thanks to science, I have cold, hard proof that it's REAL.
To further explore this phenomenon, a new study found that certain groups of people are more likely to experience "friendship at first sight" than others.
Those who are more agreeable, open and conscientious are more likely to experience "friendship chemistry," or a mutually positive first impression, explains Kelly Campbell, study author and a psychology professor at California State University, San Bernardino.
Naturally, these people tend to be women, possibly because we're generally instructed to trust our instincts and emotions more often than men are.
"Friendship chemistry" is a mutually positive first impression.
So, basically, Meg and I experienced "friendship chemistry" that one fateful night as college freshman because we're both females who are open to listening to our intuition about new people).
Then, we took that positive first impression and used it as our motivation to pursue the friendship and make it work.
AND THEN WE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
See guys?! Friendship at first sight is a thing!
Citations: Just Like Falling in Love, We Can Form Friendships at First Sight (New York Magazine: The Science of Us), Friendship at First Sight Is Totally a Thing (Glamour), How Many Seconds to a First Impression? (Association for Psychological Science), Friendship chemistry: An examination of underlying factors (ELSEVIER)
