Following a weekend of particularly raucous fraternity mixers earlier this year, Janice McMillan ’19 Freddy Marsh ’18 and Charles Broderick X ’16 began their unusually respectful and undramatic friendship. “I thought about being passive-aggressive when Charles opened the door for me once,” McMillan, a Bryn Mawr first year, said in an interview with The Phoenix. “But before I could, he explained that he wasn’t trying to be patronizing. He was just being courteous because I was carrying a full case of beer which we proceeded to drink responsibly.” McMillan, who enjoys horseback-riding and binge-watching Pretty Little Liars, is grateful to know somebody outside of the Bryn Mawr Bubble. The Health Centre commented on Tuesday that having access to both the Haverford and Swarthmore Bubbles is beneficial to her health.
Freddy Marsh, a sophomore at Swarthmore who has not yet changed their major from “uh, I like Political Science, I guess,” claims to have forgotten Swarthmore’s ranking on U.S. News and Forbes, stating, “I mean, Bryn Mawr is first on Washington Monthly’s list anyway, right? I think the rankings vary and it doesn’t seem like any of them are that off. All three colleges seem pretty much the same academically. Does that make sense?”
Marsh, who prefers to spend their time reading obscure philosophy on Parrish Beach and binge-watching Pretty Little Liars, met Broderick at a career-fair their freshman year. Broderick is an avid supporter of the Haverford cricket team, but prefers not to disclose his legacy background or inheritance. “Whether or not my parents are donors doesn’t really matter to my friends,” the Haverford senior said. “They support my decisions to recognize my own privilege without establishing an uneasy power dynamic. It’s really chill.” The three often eat meals together at their respective dining halls. Sources confirmed that they have never once compared the quality of food between the campuses, claiming they were just more interested in each other’s company than Pasta Bar.
Dr. Steven M. Diddly, a professor of forensic psychotherapy and weekend Uber driver at the University of Saskatchewan, was eager to begin a case study on the rarity of their friendship. “You hardly ever see such emotional maturity in not one, not two, but three highly intelligent young persons,” he beamed, pointing to the portrait of the Tri-Co students hanging in his office/foyer, “their frontal lobes must be on fire. When I evaluated them, I found no signs of radioactivity or foul-play with the Imperius curse. The three just happen to be missing the gene for arrogance. They were probably born without it. It’s rare, because it happens only to fetuses with minimal exposure to micro-aggressive ideas.” The neuroscience departments at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges denied The Phoenix’s requests to comment on Diddly’s results.
“We’re not perfect,” laughed Broderick while posing for a picture for the school’s brochure, “we just happen to thoroughly complete all of our secondary readings for class. It’s just made us better people.” When asked what other students thought about the unorthodox nature of their relationship, Broderick said he “didn’t care” about their judgements. Marsh and McMillan agreed, claiming they didn’t even know their own grade point averages, let alone their friends’. “Look, we just like to talk about other things. The politics of elitism aren’t interesting to us. I don’t know if this makes sense to you guys, but we choose to be self-competitive. We’re all here now, right? I don’t know what the big deal is,” Marsh said.
The three students oscillate between the campuses via the Tri-College shuttle system. They gave The Phoenix access to their collective Google Calendar, on which their class schedules, travel times, and study sessions are colour-coordinated. “I created the organizational algorithms for our Drive and GCal [sic],” McMillan said. “It really makes everything easier. And I love how Charlie and Freddy don’t wear their Haverford and Swarthmore sweatshirts when they visit me, too, to uphold the community vibe. That way, we’re just three Tri-Co students with matching leather backpacks and not representatives of our individual colleges.”
Marsh, Broderick, and McMillan plan to take a course together at Penn as soon as SEPTA fares become reasonable. They hope to recruit a University of Pennsylvania student into their cult of intersubjectivity and mutual respect.
