Elias Kirsch was just a random freshman to Leo Wywrot. 

When Leo was a sophomore, school moved from its temporary virtual state to being in-person. Being in the same forum, their first interaction took place on Forum Day. While their first interactions may have been awkward, they started to warm up one another. Together, they walked to Jerusalem Garden, talking about their shared interests, from music artists to quips they both found funny. 

“We always kind of have something to talk about,” Wywrot said. “I feel comfortable around him, and I think that just leads to a good friendship.”

Although Leo didn’t learn his name from that first day, Elias became one of Leo’s first friends at Community. He describes their friendship in one word: closeness. In just a matter of months, Leo and Elias became extremely close, sharing a bond that Leo feels he “can’t really describe.”

“We just connect really well together,” Leo said. “ He’s always been there for me and always been someone I could go to and talk to about whatever I wanted.” 

As they grew closer, Leo’s friendship with Elias became more playful, as they both tease one another.

 “I like making fun of him because he likes to listen to NAV,” Leo said. “That’s all like, ‘haha, silly,’, but it’s fun.”

Leo feels as if he can say whatever is on his mind — he never feels like needs to conceal any part of himself, completely free to talk about whatever, whenever. 

“He’s always been there for me and always been someone I could go to and talk to about whatever I wanted,” Leo said. “He’s just a good person to be around.”

Their friendship is composed of unique moments that have formed a bond like no other, from buzzing Elias’s hair to recording songs on Forum Day. Sleeping over at Camp Talahi, Elias had brought his laptop with the intent of recording a song. Although a loyal fan of Big Planet, featuring both Elias and Eliam Rosenberg, Leo started to hate Big Planet’s music, even after attending all of Elias’s concerts. 

“It was really late at night and I was trying to go to bed and he was making this song for English class,” Leo said. “‘I just want my girl now, she’s mad at me, she’s so very small, she’s so hard to see,’ — he kept playing it probably about a bajillion times in a row. It really made me mad, and I have not listened to a single Big Planet song since then.”

But jokes aside, Leo admires and supports Elias and his music journey. Once, Leo had received an ominous text from Elias who wrote, ‘that’s my evil twin,’ and Leo responded, expressing his confusion. ‘You’ll see,’ Elias wrote with suspense. But this suspense was short-lived, telling Leo he should listen to his latest song. Being the devoted fan Leo is, he did just that and was met with a pleasant surprise.

“The new song said, ‘I just hit up Leo. That’s my evil twin,’,” Leo said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m featuring on a Big Planet song. This is like celebrity interaction.’”

Elias Kirsch had already established a solid group of friends his freshman year. Although Elias found Leo to be somewhat shy and quiet at first, he would soon experience a very different side of him. Through a series of mutual friends, Leo Wywrot was added into the mix of people Elias hung out with in Forum. 

“We knew Leo was probably cool,” Elias said. “Then we started talking to him a little bit and realized dude was super cool. He just lights up a room.”

Though Elias speaks very highly of Leo and his other friends, the same could not be said of the group’s opinion on Elias’ music taste during the past two years. 

“We definitely bonded over my bad music taste,” Elias said. “Whenever I was on aux, I would play purposefully bad music that only I like and I’d think it was so funny. Then they’d start making fun of me. It was really fun.”

Despite slandering him for some song choices, Leo also inspired Elias to venture outside his usual genre. In fact, Elias discovered some of his favorites, including Faye Webster and other indie style artists, largely because of music Leo would play.  

“I never really explored what I used to think of as feminine music,” Elias said. “Until I realized hey, a lot of people do, and I thought ‘It’s really good music.’”

In addition to becoming a part of Elias’ music taste, he also became a part of one of Elias’ songs through a bar that references Leo by name. 

“I was bored in the studio, and I was making a song,” Elias said. “The lyric, ‘I just hit up Leo, that’s my evil twin’, came to me, hit me in the head and now everybody knows it.” 

Going beyond music, Elias feels that Leo helped him become more comfortable as in group settings and as a person in general. 

“He showed me how it can be okay to show sides of you that other people wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable with,” Elias said. “I don’t really care what anybody thinks now, and I think he’s definitely influenced that a little bit.”

Before meeting Leo, Elias did not always find it so easy to discount other people’s judgment and opinions. 

“[I cared about] what people thought of me and how annoying I was being,” Elias said. “He influenced me in a way that I don’t really care anymore. I can just be myself without worrying.”

Elias and Leo are very comfortable making fun of each other in a playful way. Their friend group has always enjoyed messing around, and having the friendship of an expert class clown like Leo has helped Elias become more comfortable both making and taking jokes. 

“His ability to make fun of people definitely influenced me,” Elias said. “He’s really good at it. It made me better at making fun of people and more comfortable being made fun of as well.”