N'ayez pas peur

Peur du jour: 6 Janvier 2012- Reaching out to my housemate

That night I had decided to paint the town red, white, and blue with my fellow American students. This in itself is pretty new to me. Before last Friday, I'd never been to a bar or a club or anything like that with the express purpose of "going out." I'm pretty square, I know. For the record: we went to a bar called Australie (Austrailia); they played a Grease medley which we Americans totally kicked butt at singing (so much for keeping a low profile).

The real point of this post is that I invited my 18-year-old Colombian house-brother/fellow-student (I have no idea what to call him. Basically, he is another student who lives here in the house) out with us. He's pretty shy and mostly stays in his room, but I know that all of his friends left at the end of last semester and figured he might like to meet some of the Hispanic students we have on our program (there is even another girl from Colombia!). He decided to come (which I think our host mother was happy to see) and it was a rewarding experience.

The biggest advantage was that I had someone to walk home with (breath that sigh of relief, mom and dad). Earlier that day we had a very long, "scary" discussion on what we as Americans need to do to keep ourselves safe. Basically it was a great conversation to have on a Friday afternoon only several hours before most of us were planning to go out. The biggest thing Mme Huber told us was to never walk alone (which I did not have to do!).

But the other advantage was that I actually got to talk to him. I didn't know he had been here since August and that all of his friends from Colombia had left France for the rest of the year or very much about him at all. Life in the apartment has been a lot more enjoyable now that I feel I know him better and now that he's not just the mysterious boy in the other room who I only see at dinner.

Lesson learned: it's totally worth the potential awkwardness of reaching out to someone. The worst that can happen is that the status quo will be maintained and the best thing that can happen is that you can move closer to having a friend!