When we met, the homies I live with and call my brothers, the first week of Freshman year, we were all in the same cohort at NYU Stern. August 2012, a group of youths who had no clue what life was about. I was fresh off a trip to Europe with my buddy from high school, the Dutch boy that introduced me to drugs and alcohol. The man I credit with any ability to have fun nowadays.

Fuck yeah, I was a square before meeting him! Olivier, my number one since day one.

But the three of us met because we sat next to each other in the then-daunting room. University lecture halls are a shock to seventeen and eighteen year-olds new to New York City. We spoke for a few minutes, just introducing ourselves, that kind of cute shit, but I was trying to be cooler than anything I had been in high school.

Wasn’t that hard, really. I wasn’t really anything in high school. I just had to be a person and have a personality to be better. But I got drawn into hanging out with some of the international students. A Belgian dude, an Argentine (putting aside the Brasilian hatred bred into me for the sake of making friends), and a Chinese-European guy. They mostly turned out to be to assholes, but the Argentine ended up being the best of the group. So much for stereotypes.

I’d end up smoking with the Chinese-European guy the third day of NYU. I went with my suitemates from Founders Hall, the only real friends I had, otherwise it was a practice in texting “what you all up to?” to sort out the nightly moves. We smoked outside an apartment building on 30-something street, right on the corner. Whatever the joint was that he had, it wasn’t weed, and I was high on something else. My eyes literally burned but I smiled all the way through, and I went straight back to my dorm to eat something.

Froot Loops with the skim milk. What a wonderful life.