Listening to this pair of friends, you’ll immediately realize how close they are based on the number of roasts they trade (number of friendly roasts correlates positively with friendship strength, right?). When we at Human Crossing sat down with Daniel (aka Dan the Hype Man) and Michael, it was evident that they share a strong bond and truly enjoy spending time together.
Daniel and Michael met in first year, as they were assigned to the same frosh group during Orientation Week. However, their friendship did not start here, as Daniel says they “talked to different people.” As luck would have it, not only were they assigned to the same class section, but they were also put into the same Capsim group (the business simulation that brings people together…similar to how Cam and Aislin’s story began – read their story here), which was really when Dan and Michael started to get to know each other.
The way that Daniel sees it, him and Michael were pretty much “forced into being friends” through Capsim.
Daniel: “But it ended up working out long-term, I guess.”
Although Michael agrees, he says that they did not truly get close until after the first semester Capsim simulation was over. He claims he was closer with the other group members in their group and blames this fact purely on Daniel.
Michael: “Daniel was not a great teammate and this led to some resentment amongst the adults within the team.”
*we all laugh*
They finally got close during second semester of first year, when Daniel was still trying to figure out a housing arrangement and, fortunately for their friendship, Michael was still looking to fill a spot in his house.
As for their first impressions of each other, Daniel had a lot to say. (It sure is a good thing that these two were friends already!)
Daniel: “Let’s do the first impressions question!”
Michael: “He always tells this story, I know this like verbatim…I could say it for him.”
Daniel was so keen, he barely let us finish asking the question.
Daniel: “Yeah, yeah, okay – give me the thing [phone].” (We were using a phone to record their interview.)
Here is Daniel’s tale:
Daniel: “So, my first impression when I first laid eyes on Michael and he first opened his mouth to say hello…I said to myself: ‘This is the trap. Do not fall into this trap. He is the waspy-looking, nerdy, Game-of-Thrones-loving, Dungeons-and-Dragons-player trap that you mustn’t fall into, or else you will not have a life in university. You want to get the most out of university and you will not get it by being friends with him.’”
When asked about his first impression of Daniel, Michael had quite the retort himself (which we at Human Crossing likened to being similar to the judgment one would face on a Tinder date).
Michael: “He was a lot smaller back then. Like, you can imagine, right? There’s actually a good story, where one of our friends thought that Daniel was a child genius that got to university when he was 12. We played along with this for a while. So, you could say that my first impression of him was more based on his physical appearance than his personality.”
After all this time, with this interesting start to their friendship, we knew they must have some great stories to tell about time spent together.
Michael: “I have a lot [of stories]. It’s the kind of thing where if I was speaking at Daniel’s wedding, I could ruin his marriage before it even happened. It’s not really like one specific memory, more like a composite of a lot of really awful things. I’ll look back one day and think I’m glad I didn’t do that, but I’m glad someone else did, you know?”
*everyone laughs*
Michael: “So a lot of positive memories.”
Daniel: “Similar to that point…Michael comes across as a really smart guy, but he does have the tendency to do a lot of stupid sh*t that I find truly hilarious. One highlight in particular was in second year when he had to use the facility and we were out of toilet paper and Michael felt compelled to substitute toilet paper with a Clorox wipe.”
*everyone laughs a lot*
Daniel: “Buddy didn’t even rinse it out first.”
Michael: “It happened. It was what it was.”
Daniel: “He said ow for the next 20 minutes. That’s my favourite memory.”
When asked about a challenge they’ve overcome, Michael was hesitant to answer.
Michael: “I don’t know, I don’t want to perjure myself. Who’s going to read this?”
We at Human Crossing: “The internet.”
Daniel: “A challenge for me was during the first few months when I initially moved in with Michael, because the rest of the people in his house were his floormates and I didn’t really know them that well. We had different personalities that clashed at first, but overtime we got more comfortable with each other. But we’re still living in that same house.”
Michael: “I’m not.”
Daniel: “That’s because you went on a full year exchange.”
(In a turn of events, it seems that Daniel is now living in Michael’s house.)
Daniel: “Yeah, that’s how much it’s come along.”
As for what they like to do together, we at Human Crossing think we should leave it up to our readers’ imaginations – but let’s just say it is quite off-colour.
Daniel & Michael: “We watch _____ _____ together. And sports.”
*everyone laughs in shock*
Michael: “We also check out social media together.”
We inferred this meant checking out the profiles of attractive girls, but Daniel assured us that they did not discriminate based on gender.
Daniel: “We have a thing where Michael watches ____ ___ and then he asks me to psychoanalyze it with him, in terms of helping him understand what’s going on.”
Michael: “Like the various symbols and whatnot.”
We at Human Crossing were having a hard time believing what we were hearing, so we had to ask: “Level with us, do you truly do this?”
Michael: “Yeah. But it’s more funny when you’re actually there. It’s not as weird when you’re there.”
Daniel: “No, no, like if we’re watching sports and, let’s say we’re using my computer, I’ll go to the bathroom and while I’m gone, Michael will type in this website and when I come back it’ll be playing _____ ____ on my computer. Then, I’ll get all scared because of viruses and I’ll close it down.”
Michael apparently wished to clarify that this was not an activity he and Daniel did alone together.
Michael: “Know that this is not just me and Daniel. This is me, Daniel, and other people. This is not an exclusive Daniel and I activity.”
Daniel: “Our entire house does this. We are not the only creeps that do this.”
Michael: “I think that there is just naturally some homoeroticism that arises from a group of seven or six guys living together. Like, that is just kind of a natural result of these things.”
Daniel: “And like there’s the wrestling that goes on…”
Michael: “…which has all sorts of undertones.”
By this point, we were practically in tears.
Daniel: “But real talk though, something we like to do together is watch sports together and go to bars. Like instead of going to the club, we like to go to The Alibi for drinks or something. When this launches, we’ll go celebrate or something.”
Although we attempted to ask these two for their advice regarding friendships, Michael and Daniel got off onto a bit of a tangent…
Michael: “I’m not always cognisant of people’s feelings, so it takes someone like Daniel who doesn’t take things too personally…”
Daniel: “I’m really good at taking sh*t. Okay, advice, um… I would say, your opinion matters? Don’t judge people based on their first appearance.”
Michael: “Even though that’s what I did with you. We both judged each other. I don’t really like giving advice. That’s just how it be.”
Daniel: “Every time Michael talks to someone, they feel like he is psychoanalyzing them. This can be a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get used to it, it’s pretty funny.”
Michael: “One person I’ve actually gotten incredibly close with is Daniel’s mother. The psychoanalyzing quote is directly from her and is probably the reason why I make her uncomfortable.”
Daniel: “Can we not talk about my mother?”
As we were getting quite off topic, we decided to cap the interview there.
- Love, Human Crossing
p.s. If you are interested in learning more about how other Queen's alumni are doing...check out our friends at The Limestone Era. (They even feature the iconic Professor D. J. McConomy!)