I’m in fourth year, which means that:
I have very little time or sanity to socialise.
That soon all the friends I’ve made in university will disperse as we graduate.
In an effort to avoid despair, I have enlisted the help of self-proclaimed ‘guy that lives in Dundee’ and all-round sound dude, Joseph.
I met Joseph in a bar after a comedy gig a few months ago, and after chatting for a while I discovered that he runs a regular social for his friend group that has been ongoing since his time at university and is one of the ways that he keeps in touch with people. The social is called ‘Anime Night’, but Joseph explained that they often do other activities like cook, play board games, and just generally hang out. I, having a background in anime and a willingness to vibe, managed to procure an invite: it was a great night, very chilled, and everyone there expressed a love for having this dedicated time to hang out.
Clearly having met an expert, I sat down with Joseph to talk more about social life after university.
You studied at Abertay?
JOSEPH: Yeah, Abertay. Started in September 2018 and I graduated in, like, July 2022.
But you’re not from Dundee?
JOSEPH: No, so I grew up in Fife- just across the water- in Glen Rothes, and before that, I was born in Stoke-on-Trent in England…Raised in pubs, and then we moved up to Glen Rothes because of my parents family.
So you came here for uni, what did you study at Abertay University?
JOSEPH: Computer Arts, that entails a wide net of art from children’s books to 2D renders for the latest Marvel movies. The biggest selling point of the course is video games. So, I always wanted to be a 2D concept artist doing character design. Got in without any skills, and at the end of it, I know I like doing 2D concept art but mostly for props and environment, and rendering. It was a really great course, good for networking.
Was there a lot of people studying Computer Arts?
JOSEPH: Something like 70 people in our course…Our year was incredibly social…We all would hang about after class and go to the pub.
Were you in any societies?
JOSEPH: I was in Abertay Smash Society. ASS.
Smash?
JOSEPH: Smash Bros, a fighting game. That’s actually where I met a lot of my friends…It wasn’t like any other society, as well, they were quite good at handling the society aspects whilst still making it feel friendly and social…They won ‘Best Society’ a few years in a row.
Did you meet quite a lot of people through that game?
JOSPEH: Yeah, totally…The people I made friends with running the society- a lot of our friends today are through them, and through our various courses.
Has it always been easy to get everyone together?
JOSPEH: We never actually had to worry about it. Never had that concern. Our group is so big and there’s so many people in Dundee...as time goes on, people go and new people come into the frame.
Do you feel quite comforted by having that network, do you ever worry about moving away?
JOSEPH: It’s a big comfort. I feel quite secure in Dundee, and that’s one of the reasons I will probably be stuck here for a while – there are worse places to be stuck- because there’s so many friends here, such a big social network, I don’t want to leave. I’m just a stones throw away from going outside and bumping into three people I know.
So now that you're farther into adulthood and you've got this widespread network of friends, how do you go about making time for it all?
JOSEPH: It was easier at uni…because everyone's so eager to meet new people, there's a constant need for nights out, going out or whatnot. But, outside of education, now, just working for a living…Time is fleeting.
I'm always finding myself wishing I had more time for myself, as well as more time to see the people I want to see. But with so many people, having a weekly social is the best way to actually get a big group together. They can just rock up. Sometimes people can't make it, sometimes other people can, and they all get to hang out. I get to hang out with them.
So how do these socials go?
JOSEPH: The format is: we have a social and it happens on this day and this time, and you should come along…the rules aren’t so strict these days.
It started out with, when we first came to university, like I said me and my pals were big nerds and wanted to attract like-minded people. So, we're already very social, and people are having nights at theirs, as young people do- they want to have nights. They want to have things that are theirs. So, I myself started doing a thing called ‘cook night’, because I love cooking- I’ve been cooking since I was eight…And that went on for a wee bit, but, you know, being a struggling student, it really breaks the bank and then nights out as well. Hangovers induced the need to stay in bed and not cook food…from that, another more chill social, I was like ‘Anime Night’.
I’ll find an anime that we all like to watch, and watch it once a week… And more and more people hear us having a great time and seeing us be so close on our course, so more people want to come, and I want to see them. So, I’m inviting everyone. I’m like ‘ you should come’, and I was very pro-active in that, you know- there’s a lot of shy people who are on our course too. I’d go the extra mile, give them a call, give them a message…not pressuring them into it, but saying ‘you’re more than welcome to come.’
You’ve mentioned to us that the night trailed off after COVID happened, when did it pick back up?
JOSEPH: So, a couple years ago after I moved into my new place, I moved in with a flatmate who had asked me about Anime Night and he really like the idea behind it and he said that he could dig it. Another friend of mine, V they asked me to bring it back. They missed it. I was like, Sure could do and it was, everyone wants to come, still come. And it's pretty much been around the last couple years since they asked for us to do it again. The only difference is moving from once a week to once every two weeks because no matter what anyone tells you, every year, your ability to wake up is more than doubled in effort in the morning.
So, it felt like something people didn’t just want, but need in a way?
JOSEPH: It’s just a normal need for young people to gather and hang out. It’s just normal human nature... and the easiest thing is to do something by yourself… The whole point behind it is it's not my night, specifically, it's just it takes a type of person to run it and understand it and understand what it takes to do, and I'm currently that person…I understand the risks of having wanton swathes of random people at my home. It allows all these groups of people around me over time, they can end up hanging out form relationships, they can hang out outside of that... And then I'll ask new people who move here and may not have many friends today, to start hanging out in the group too. That’ll continue, and that'll go on no matter where I am also use this tool to bring people together and build a bigger group. It's a social tool.
You sound like a great host, were you always that way?
JOSEPH: I remember being younger, and throwing parties when my parents were out of town and getting very good at cleanup, hiding all the evidence. So, when it came to hosting at university, I’ve had windows smashed, holes punched through the walls, and my door broken…people walking through and peeing in my sink, all that stuff…
That’s definitely the weird part that people look at me like ‘you’re weird for that’. They’ll look at me saying ‘oh my god, he’s gonna flip’, but I’m always like ‘guys, it’s fine, we’ll deal with it in the morning.’ There’s absolutely zero point in getting stressed out at that moment. If there’s a hole in the wall- for three pounds you get filler, some tape, and some paint from Poundland, but the memory will last forever.
Sounds wild, but very fun. You must be glad it’s continued?
JOSEPH: We’re really lucky to have each other, that’s why I’m happily stuck in Dundee until the end of time, more or less… The only reason it thrives so well with so little help is because of this big group…Everybody knows each other, they know the pretext. Without them, it would be much harder…Having the social, the ability to run it and manage it and understanding the risks [is very important] but having such a social group of friends that’s always going to be folk available means the vibes are always going to be there.
Perhaps keeping scheduled space and time for people to get together is something we should all consider continuing past university. We all take for granted the opportunity university provides us in having so many people in one place on roughly the same time schedule, but perhaps we should all be considering how we can continue this into the rest of our adult lives. Protecting our relationships is protecting ourselves. So, who’s up for making a night?
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