One February night my freshman year, two of my best friends and entryway-mates told me they had decided to block with other people. They gave me all the right explanations: they’d really bonded with this new group of girls they’d been hanging out with, they thought they might be more compatible roommates with them, they weren’t taking this decision lightly, it didn’t mean we wouldn’t still hang out all the time…But I felt hurt and confused, and I started to think that maybe they didn’t like me as much as I thought they did. If you’re best friends, you block together…right?
Fast-forward two years, and they’re still my best friends. We didn’t block together, but we linked, and they live next door. We joined the same sorority. We still have meals together and we still get ready to go out in each other’s rooms like we did freshman year when we shared an entryway. Turns out they actually meant it when they said that their decision not to block with me had nothing to do with how much they liked me or how much they valued our friendship.
I’ve gotten to know and come to love their blockmates—my linkmates. They have become some of my favorite people at Harvard, and I probably never would have met them if I’d blocked the way I’d planned.
In the end I blocked with two of my freshman roommates, and I wouldn’t trade our tiny three-person blocking group for anything. They are my sisters and my soulmates, and I can’t imagine life without them.
Overall, blocking worked out pretty well for me, though I really worried that it wouldn’t at the time. If I could talk to freshman me right now, I would tell her that blocking is not as dramatic or important as it seems, and that who you block with does not determine who you hang out with for the next three years. It’s just who you live with. And sometimes what you want in a roommate or entryway-mate is different from what you want in a friend anyway. I linked with my best friends and blocked with my roommates, and it worked out better than I could have hoped.
P.S. Eliot House best house tho.