The Pride Centre hosted an event called speed friending on Feb. 4, where students can have the opportunity to make new friends.
This event was created by the Pride Centre Coordinator, Quinn Blue. He created speed friending in 2017 to allow students to meet new friends. It’s a way to celebrate Valentine’s with a potential friend, which is called Palentine’s Day. A dozen of students attended to meet someone new.
“Often times college students face some isolation especially if they’re part of the LGBTQ community, so it can be really important to provide space to make friends,” Blue said.
The event provided pronoun buttons for students to not assume other people’s gender. It was a way to show their preferable pronoun when meeting people at this event.
International student, Vanessa Jiang, 28, came to the event to meet potential friends.
“I want to know more people from different countries or local people,” Jiang said.
She moved from China and is attending many events at the college to be involved with the community.
Living on campus and being away from her small town is uneasy for Grace Francis, 18, who is looking for friends to connect with. She has a difficult time bonding classmates and her classes aren’t very talkative. So she came to speed friending to find a potential friend.
“I don’t really know anyone from the area, so I’m trying to get out of my shell,” Francis said.
It welcomes a friendly environment to interact with students and chat about their interests. Meghana Tamma, 22, is an international student studying human resource management and found it a great way to meet new people.
“I thought it was a good opportunity to go and meet people. Going to speed friending is a fast process to meet people,” Tamma said.