The Pauley Lounge Folk

I started my Cornell College journey filled with a mix of anxiety, excitement, and the hope of making new friendships. During our Peer Advisor (PA) group orientation, I huddled away from people, too nervous to introduce myself. Suddenly, a young woman with glasses and short hair plopped down beside me, as stress-ridden as I felt. Her name was Autumn Allen, and she was my first friend at Cornell. 

That friendship would turn into ones with Desiree Clark and Shawna Anderson, and would lead to our unintentional takeover of Pauley Lounge. 

First year of college in 2005 saw most freshmen living in Pauley-Rorem. Back then, the Pauley Lounge consisted of a couple of couches and plush chairs, a TV, foosball table, billiard table, and a piano. At first we only met there to walk over to the Commons together. But then we started binge watching movies and TV shows. Foosball became a rite of passage as we nearly broke our wrists fighting to win the game. If we really wanted to ruin friendships, we battled each other in Mario Kart. I’m sure we woke up half the dorm screaming, laughing, and cackling as we were obliterated by blue shells. 

If I went looking for my friends, I found them in the lounge, likely watching “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” for the seventh time in a row. 

But the lounge wasn’t just for fun and games; it was a place where we broke out of our shells and looked past differences to get to know one another.

Desiree and I joke about how we butted heads our freshman year due to differences of opinion. One night, when it was just the two of us, we talked until dawn, sharing our beliefs and intimate details about our childhoods. We found we had far more in common than we initially thought. By the time we dragged ourselves to bed, we knew we’d just become best friends. 

Every night folks found us in the lounge where we sometimes hosted slumber parties on the weekend. We’d be in the middle of watching a movie and people would greet us with a hearty, “Hey, Lounge Folk!” and sometimes even join us for socializing. 

Around the holidays we hosted a Christmas celebration with the Lounge Folk. We ordered pizza from Paul Revere’s or Pizza Palace, tucked presents under the tree, decorated the lounge, and shared snacks and brown bag lunches—may they rest in peace. Even after our freshman year, we returned to Pauley Lounge each winter to host a holiday party for the Lounge Folk. No matter how our group dynamics changed, the lounge was where our friendships started, and we carried that with us through college. 

The thing I loved most about being one of the Lounge Folk was that whenever I felt alone, or I was struggling with anxiety and depression, I always knew where I could find at least one friend. We supported each other, provided an ear if someone was upset or happy, built relationships and sisterhoods, and also encouraged one another to take breaks from studying to have fun and relax. That’s something I miss most about living in a dorm; I don’t have a place to go where someone will always be there. But I have both the memories and the people still in my life and, really, that’s what matters most.

Erin Casey ’09 (erincasey.org) is the author of “The Purple Door District” urban fantasy series and a founder of The Writers’ Rooms, a literary organization based in Iowa City that’s focused on providing a free, safe environment for all writers. When she’s not writing, working, and volunteering, she’s busy raising her crazy flock of six birds.

This story is part of a series on six student gathering spots, Hangouts through the years.