After repeatedly seeing posts about students feeling alone on Friday nights, freshman Rishil Mehta wrote a post on the “Wash U Confessions” Facebook page, declaring “Like so many of you, I came to Wash. U. hoping I’d quickly find my network of close friends, that I’d bond perfectly with my floor, that all my Friday nights would be spent having fun with the people around me. It was a short-lived dream.”

Mehta wondered why, if there were so many people who were alone on Friday nights, they couldn’t come together. It was from this question that the concept for “Hangout Fridays” was born. Mehta envisioned a space where people could play board and video games, eat and just hang out. With some help from the Washington University community, Mehta fulfilled that vision and hosted the kickoff event this past Friday at Ursa’s on the South 40.

“I was inspired for this because I saw a need for this kind of thing. On the ‘Wash U Confessions’ [page], one thing consistently said was, ‘I don’t want to spend more Friday nights alone in my room…I wish I could be going out, making new friends, hanging out with people.’ We know there’s a need for this and that’s what inspired me to make this thing happen,” Mehta said.

The Wash. U. community was quick to support Rishil’s idea. Brett Gao, a freshman on Ursa’s Board, suggested that the space would be the perfect venue and helped coordinate the event.

“As a freshman, I feel like sometimes the choices for Fridays are limited and it doesn’t matter how many friends you have or what your social life is like, it is unavoidable that someone might have a lonely Friday night at some point. So we want to make sure that no one ever has a lonely Friday night at Wash. U.,” Gao said.

“The purpose of Ursa’s is to create alternative events for people who don’t want to go out…hopefully the people on the 40 can have a place where its very relaxed and laid-back and they can hang out,” sophomore Brianna Tobias, a representative for Ursa’s Board who helped organize the venue’s involvement, said.

Hangout Fridays also doubled as an effort to bring back some of the community activity that has disappeared from Ursa’s since its transition from a popular late-night dining venue to a special events space in recent years.

The kickoff was well attended. The main attractions included the video game “Super Smash Brothers” with eight-player compatibility, a giant game of Jenga and a mix of board games like Scrabble, chess and Battleship. Attendees also enjoyed the free chicken wings and pizza provided.

“The turnout [was] good; there [was] a huge range of people. I was initially expecting a bunch of nerdy guys…but the fact that there are girls here adds to it. It’s definitely a wider ranger of people than I expected,” John Lu, a freshman, said.

“I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’m always pro-people—meeting new people, making friends and having a space like this. There are a lot of people—you can see how many—who enjoy being social but not in the typical party way. So we want to give those people a way to be social in the way that they would most prefer,” graduate student Aarthi Arunachalam, another event coordinator, said.

The goal is to facilitate an open community where new friendships can form, ideally leading to social interactions outside of just Friday nights.

“It helps build a community…there are a lot of people having fun, learning other people’s names, developing friendships, so if you see someone on campus or in a class you already know them,” Sam Fisher, a freshman, said.

Mehta said that realistically, he hopes that Hangout Fridays can occur bi-monthly or at least once a month. For now, he said, “We are open to suggestions and if people want to get in contact with us, message us on Facebook, let us know [of] any suggestions that [they] have. The idea is that this is for the community and by the community so the community will be in charge of what they want.”