They say that you make lifelong friends in college.

Friends are awesome, because they are like family members that you can choose. When you come to college, in the beginning, it is rough finding friends, especially if you’re someone who isn’t too fond of cliques, like I was in freshman year. I wanted to make friends, but I was thinking more along the lines of one or two friends. Not a whole group.

Now, I wanted friends. I really did. But I was very lazy. So I figured, why not just be friends with my roommate. There was easy access and we seemed to get along well, at least after the awkwardness of the first day. So that was my original plan. It worked for a little bit. But then I started to realize that it felt a little forced.

We went to the same organization meetings, both joined the dance team, and ate our meals at the same time. It was all fine and dandy but, in all honesty, I wanted a break. I would see her every day, at every meal and every organization meeting. I was getting tired of it, but I continued to hang out with her.

Then she began to hang out with a group of girls in her sorority. She would always invite me to do things with them out of courtesy, and then one day she stopped inviting me. Me.

Then she moved out.

I wasn’t really too hurt; it was more like a slap to the face to remind me that I needed to stop being lazy and actually go and find friends. There was a group of girls I started hanging out with, and they were pretty cool; they introduced me to their friends and we all got along great, back then. There was about ten of us in total.

Though I didn’t intend for it to happen, we sort of became a clique. I tried to fight it but I lost. I tried to pretend that I hated being in this group, and I would always question things. I would say “But why do we all need to go together?” when in reality I was jumping for joy on the inside. It was great to always have someone to go with you to eat in the dining hall, or someone who wanted to go work out with you. It was just great to know that I had people who would have my back.

That was freshman year. We all were naïve back then. We hadn’t truly lived yet. But as all of us went through different experiences, now the ten of us seemed to have split into smaller groups. We all started together but, over the years, a lot of the friendships ended, due to either the drama or just the fact that people outgrew one another.

But still, into junior year, we feel like we owe it to ourselves to try and keep this friendship thing alive. So we always try and all be together for big events, like birthdays. It seems all good in theory, but when it actually happens, it is very awkward. It usually goes like this. We get a text from whoever decides to host the event: “So and So’s birthday is coming up, and we should all put our petty drama aside and all go to a place together, for old times’ sake.”

So we all decide to suck up our problems with others and go. Once we reach the location, we all try our best to disperse among the people we no longer associate with. The room is usually divided and full of detached conversations between the mini cliques within the original clique. God forbid we have to drive somewhere. Then we have to figure out the carpooling situation, since not everyone has a car, and that in itself is a huge headache. "So and so" doesn’t want "so and so" in her car because "XYZ." This person doesn’t want to sit near another person in the car. Then it’s a huge argument and everyone doesn’t even feel like going anymore. Basically, it ends in a disaster. The person who is being celebrated doesn’t necessarily realize this, but the rest of the group always does.

Sometimes, you have to just let things go. We all were once cool, but now we're not, and that’s okay. We shouldn’t try and force this clique thing to the extreme. Friendships can end; we aren’t in them for life like some kind of cult. Everything has to come to an end at some point.