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{shortcode-a0fafb3727a5405eac46bd1741f1eafab86bbf7e}enry N. Haimo ’24 is already waiting for me in the Lowell House dining hall when I walk in at 3:58 p.m., two minutes before our scheduled meeting time. Tobias A.A. Benn ’23-’24 shows up right at 4. Years earlier, at Henry’s mayoral debate watch party in New York — the duo’s first in-person meeting — this punctuality was Tobias’ first impression.
“I was the first person to arrive,” Tobias says. “Henry said, ‘I knew you’d be the one to arrive on time.’”
“Friendship at first sight?” I ask them. They both nod in fierce agreement. “It was, absolutely,” Tobias says.
Until the watch party, Henry and Tobias had only ever spoken virtually. In the fall of 2020, while Henry was taking Humanities 10, the two were matched together through the course’s mentorship program which connects students currently taking Hum 10 with students who have taken it before. Tobias was Henry’s mentor.
Their first meeting was through Zoom, around 40 minutes long. “I think I have the time recorded,” Tobias says, explaining he had documented the encounter in his journal.
“I kept a very intimate journal of pretty much everything I did,” Tobias says. Before I can probe this habit further, Henry chimes in, “You’re talking to a reporter here.” They tell me later that they are “private people.”
After sparks flew during their initial Zoom, the two called each other frequently throughout the subsequent spring semester. Once they were back on campus in the fall of 2021, they spent more and more time together, often around Lowell House, where Tobias lives, which is also where they both participate in the Lowell House Society of Russian Bell Ringers. (Tobias is the co-president; Henry is the historian.)
Now, they are in their third year of friendship. I ask about their favorite memories together, and the two confer. Some, they choose to keep to themselves. “We have non-disclosure agreements that we sign,” Tobias jokes.
But some memories, they’re willing to let me in on, to fossilize in this article.
One includes a trip to one of Tobias’s hometowns, Santa Fe, where the two had dinner with Tobias’ high school philosophy teacher, visited the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and went hiking with Tobias’ high school friends.
Another memory is perhaps less grand, but just as meaningful — a series of conversations in the small courtyard of Lowell House at the beginning of their first fall semester together on campus.
“It was still warm enough to be outside,” Henry says. “Our first in-person encounters, very late into the night, were very memorable.”
“Returning from Covid for me was very jarring because I’d been away from campus for so long,” Tobias adds. “Seeing Henry again, after the only time I’d seen him in person, was the perfect welcome back.”
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Their friendship has only blossomed over time.
“Initially, we had a lot of similarities with which we could identify with each other,” Henry says. “We’ve also grown to appreciate and discuss our differences.”
Tobias adds, “It’s very rewarding to go over the small details of difference because it’s in those details that one isn’t able to explore with many people that we might learn the most.”
Across the table, the two look like mirror images: both have glasses and curly hair and proper collegiate New England outfits, Tobias in a collared shirt and Henry in a sweater. In fact, they tell me that they’ve been mistaken for brothers. But the two do differ, and I attempt to decipher those differences by putting their friendship to the test.
First, I ask them a series of “most likely to” questions, yielding revealing results. Tobias is most likely to give his kid a terrible name. Henry is most likely to win Survivor, but Tobias is most likely to win Love Island. Henry is most likely to become a fortune teller at a carnival.
Next, I ask them a string of questions about their favorite things — colors, books, music artists – and see if they can guess each other’s answers. The game becomes uncompetitive very quickly; they freely give each other hints or nudge each other in the right direction.
I ask them to name a class the other has that meets on Thursdays. They succeed. I ask them to write down each other’s thesis topics. They succeed again, finding it to be an easy task. I posit that a lot of friends wouldn’t think so. Tobias says, “Oh, no. We’re nerds.”
I ask them to name the other’s favorite restaurant in Harvard Square. Henry changes the prompt to “in Cambridge” so that he can write “Dalí,” and Tobias asks if he can alter his choice to Dalí when we review answers, because Henry’s right, that’s actually his favorite restaurant, and he should have put it down himself.
By the end of our interview, I’ve grown to love Henry and Tobias’ simple partnership. And while the future remains a mystery, I’ll be sad to see a post-grad world in which the two potentially live in different areas. But, they assure me there’s nothing to worry about.
“I think we’re confident that we will always stay in touch,” Henry says.
Tobias agrees. “Always.”
— Magazine Editor-at-Large Michal Goldstein can be reached at michal.goldstein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @bymgoldstein.
