Yes, we all know Valentine’s Day is kind of fake.
It’s commercial, it’s overdone, and technically… it’s not even a real holiday. And yet – I know you still want the flowers.
University has a way of reshaping how you think about relationships. Not just romantic ones, but the everyday connections that quietly structure your life. The ones formed through routine, proximity, and shared space rather than intention. When people talk about relationships in university, they usually focus on finding your people. What they don’t talk about is how many of your most meaningful relationships aren’t chosen at all. They just… happen.
They start in classrooms.
They carry over from past versions of you.
And eventually, they follow you home.
In this article, I’m going to talk about the actual relationships we experience in university—the ones every student goes through, but we almost never name.
No one really warns you about the relationships that only exist inside a classroom. Not friendships, not strangers—something in between. The kind that make total sense in the moment and quietly disappear once the semester ends.
There’s the person you sit beside every Monday and Wednesday. You chose that seat early on and stuck with it—because most of us do. There’s comfort in familiarity, in knowing where you belong in a room, even if you never talk about it. You make small comments before class, share notes when someone misses a slide, maybe walk out together once or twice. In later undergrad years, this gets easier when you start recognizing the same faces in your program. But in electives, it’s brand new territory. That seatmate becomes your constant for twelve weeks… and then you never see them again. A real connection, built entirely on routine and proximity, with no obligation to last beyond the lecture hall.
Then there are group projects—a different kind of academic relationship, with much higher stakes. Group work forces interaction: meetings, shared deadlines, late-night stress. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it very much doesn’t. If you liked your group, you’ll wave in the hallway, maybe stop for a quick “how are classes going?” If you didn’t, it’s the tight smile or mutual avoidance, like you both silently agreed to erase the experience. And that’s normal. Group work is designed to teach collaboration, but it also reveals compatibility—or the lack of it. We’ve all been the group member someone didn’t love, and we’ve all been relieved to never work with certain people again.
These academic relationships aren’t dramatic or deep, but they’re real. They shape your days, your routines, and your sense of belonging—sometimes without you realizing it—before quietly fading when the semester does.
2. The Transitional Relationship
These are the people from past versions of you—the ones who make a brief reappearance and then quietly fade again. Not quite friends, not quite strangers. Just familiar enough to feel something, not close enough to do anything about it.
It’s the person you talked to for twenty minutes at a bar last weekend, now suddenly sitting three rows ahead of you in class. No follow-up. No acknowledgment. Just mutual amnesia. Eye contact avoided on both sides, as if pretending it never happened is the most respectful option. And honestly, that’s the best part. There’s comfort in the unspoken agreement to let the moment stay exactly where it belongs.
Then there are the people you graduated high school with. How this plays out depends entirely on where you go to university. For me, a lot of familiar faces followed the same path. In first year, it’s all polite recognition—smiles, waves, maybe even a quick hello in passing. By third year, it shifts. The waves stop. The smiles fade. You pass each other in the hallway like two people who share a history neither of you needs to revisit. Sometimes you see them every day. You just don’t acknowledge it anymore.
It feels sad if you overthink it—but it isn’t. University is built on transition. Growth asks for movement, and movement naturally leaves some relationships behind. These aren’t losses so much as evidence that you’re no longer who you were when those connections made sense.
3. The People You Go Home To
Yes, this relationship starts in the most practical ways possible—shared kitchens, yelling “get out of the bathroom,” dividing chores, learning each other’s schedules. But it very quickly becomes more than that.
The relationship you have with the people you go home to shifts constantly. It depends on whether you knew them before moving in, how close you become, how compatible your routines are, and where you are in your own life. There are so many variables, and none of them guarantee anything. Some roommates stay roommates. Others quietly turn into something much bigger.
My favourite roommate relationship was in second year. I say that a lot, and it still feels true every time. There were three of us—four, technically, but we don’t need to get into that—and we were people who never would have chosen each other in any other setting. Different backgrounds, different social circles, different versions of university life. We wouldn’t have looked twice at each other in the hallway. And yet, we became each other’s people. That’s the quiet magic of student housing: it brings together people who would have otherwise passed by, and asks them to figure it out anyway.
When I was working with University Apartments at Wester-Land, one of my favourite things to watch was move-in day. Strangers meeting their roommates for the first time—nervous, polite, unsure. It’s a strange kind of fear, realizing you’re about to live with someone you don’t know at all, for what feels like forever. But it’s also beautiful. Watching unfamiliar faces become comfortable within hours reminded me how quickly shared space can turn into shared life. Just like it did for me.
Final Thoughts
Relationships in university are rarely fixed. They shift, stretch, soften, and sometimes disappear altogether. The person you were inseparable from in first year can feel like a distant memory by third—and that’s not a failure. It’s normal.
When we talk about university, we tend to focus on how it’s supposed to look: lifelong friends, perfectly aligned roommates, seamless connections. We don’t talk enough about how it actually unfolds. In reality, you’ll have a group member you can’t stand. The person you sat beside every day in high school French won’t even glance at you by third-year psychology. The roommates who felt like family in second year might drift into occasional check-ins, or quiet distance.
And somehow, none of that negates what those relationships were when they mattered. They still shaped your days. They still held you during a specific version of your life. What lasts isn’t always the people—it’s the memories, the stories, the moments you’ll return to long after university ends. And that’s enough.
See you next week,
Liv
