Leaving high school, I thought I knew what friends were…. and boy was I wrong! In high school, you have your friends -- or your “cliques”. They are set groups of people that you dare not wander out of. In high school, these cliques are so evident and made very dramatic by today’s movies that fuel those segregations. We take our labels early and we freaking run with them.
We accentuate the characteristics of our “tribes” to further the differentiation between groups. The high school campus becomes its own little universe where the students write the social rules. Peace and alliances can be short lived while wars declared between groups can fire their first canons during freshman year and leave lasting blows that leak into graduation.
In college, this grouping of individuals completely disappears! It’s funny to look back on high school days and realize just how vain and egotistical people can be. In college, your slate is completely wiped clean. Nobody knows you from Adam. Nobody knows your past, the only things they will know is what you show them. Taking this into consideration, be extremely grateful for the friends that you have in college.
These friends that you gain in such a short amount of time are going to be your most genuine friends. These people are not your friends just because you occupy the same building together from 8-4 like in high school, these people are in your life by complete choice.
These friends that you make in college you make during your most vulnerable hours. Freshman year you make your first friends when you are your loneliest and most homesick. These friends are there for you when you’re weepy and debating whether being away from home was the right choice.
Those friends are there to take you out, to have a good time, and to meet even more people in your position. These friends are in your life for the general purpose of being happy.
Take a look at the friends you have in college. Think back to when you met.
Who introduced you? What bonded you? Where were you?
And look at your life now because of them, think back to all the times you just enjoyed time in their company. Think about all the events, birthdays, tragedies, milestones that you shared with them. Did you thank them? Did you show gratitude? Your college friends do a lot more than you probably realize, and probably do it without even realizing it.
Your college friends provide that social support and love that lacks when you leave home. Those college friends are in your life as a second family. College friends show no judgment, accept you fully, and are always there for you.
This kind of friendship is completely unique to the college experience. Yes, there are friendships you grew up with, and friendships you make before college that share similar characteristics, but the friends you make in college are made in such a unique situation and are unmatched by any other social encounter.
Thank you to those above-and-beyond, call-anytime, always-there-for-you, love-you-to-the-moon-and-back friendships. I couldn’t imagine college/life without you!
