Over winter break I attended The Night the Buzz Stole Xmas (night two), which is an annual holiday concert put on by 96.5 the Buzz. I went last year with my brother Mitch and had a great time seeing Arctic Monkeys and Bastille. This year my brother and I made plans to go again with his girlfriend Marisa. It’s not exactly fun being a third wheel but I wasn’t going to miss Misterwives just because I had some plans fall through. Instead of sitting and being a third wheel all night, I decided to use the opportunity to prepare me for next year in college. I stepped out of my comfort zone and made some new friends.

   In most situations with new people, I’m not very outgoing. It’s one thing that I’m hoping to change before college. It wasn’t until after the second set with the band BANKS that I finally started a conversation with someone. It turned out that the guy who had been standing next to me during the set, Andrew, had wandered down to the floor level while his friend sat in the balcony. Within ten minutes I learned that Andrew had moved from a small town for a job in Kansas City as a chemist. It wasn’t hard at all to keep the conversation going once I actually started talking. Sure, there was the occasional awkward pause in conversation as one of us dug for another question to ask but after a few seconds the conversation would pick up right where it left off. I even discovered that he had seen my favorite movie, Real Genius, a hidden gem from the 80’s. It was shocking to me that all it took to start up a conversation was a simple introduction and a friendly smile.

   It’s possible that it could have just been luck that I met someone with so many common interests as me but I doubt it. I also met a girl named Emma in the lobby during one of the set changes. Emma is a college student at Notre Dame, back to visit her family for the holidays. Her sister and a friend had brought her to the concert but Emma had gotten a headache and went out to sit in the lobby. One of the things I found that Emma and I had in common was that she was on the newspaper staff at her high school. We ended up having a ten-minute conversation just comparing the styles of school newspapers and the use of color.

   While the music was great, I couldn’t help but relish the fact that I had pushed myself to go out of my comfort zone and make some new friends. It wasn’t exactly easy but I think that the night gave me a taste of what finding friends in college will be like.