As Welcome Week approaches, the swarm of incoming freshmen will be feeling a range of emotions: anxiety, anticipation, delight, eagerness, enthusiasm and more. Worst of all, since most of you — yes, I am talking to you, freshmen — are leaving your hometowns, you may be thinking, “How will I make any friends?” Lucky for you, you will make many friends during Welcome Week. However, these are just your fill-in friends.

See, one of the great things about all the Welcome Week events is that they actually do give you the opportunity to interact with hundreds of other freshmen. Yet, there is an illusion present with all those people — they are temporary. These fill-in friends are sadly only there because you have not yet had enough time to develop any true and long-lasting friendships. Nevertheless, you desperately need to hang out with people because let’s face it: you probably do not want to be friendless in the first few weeks.

Now, as pessimistic as this all may sound, I am here to tell you that although your fill-in friends cannot be your real friends, they still help while you transition to NYU. With these friends, you will be spending days and nights out, exploring the city together and flexing your freedom muscles. But now, as we fast-forward past Welcome Week and past the first couple of weeks of classes, this bond you have created with your fill-in friends will weaken, and then one day be no more. Those nights hanging out will suddenly turn into just casual texting and then to just being Snapchat friends. It is a sad but realistic end to these so-called friends of yours.

As sad as this is, there is a silver lining. Your fill-in friends are simply placeholders for your true friends. Although these people may not last forever, you would not be able to find your real ones without them.

A version of this article appeared in the Sunday, Aug. 27 print edition. Email Adryan Barlia at [email protected].