Older people say that the college years are "golden," or that they are the "best years of your life." If you're like I was in college, you have probably found that a little hard to believe.

Now that I am done with my undergraduate coursework, however, I am finding some of the validity of these statements. This isn't to downplay the responsibilities and crippling anxiety that come with college, nor is it to say that life after college is hopeless or boring. College can also be one of the hardest and most grueling times of a person's life.

I believe these "golden" differences mainly relate to our social lives.

I am suffering from a completely different set of problems than those which plagued me during my (reasonably long) stint as an undergraduate. When I was in classes, it was not nearly as difficult to socialize with people my own age. They were everywhere. I could hardly turn around without seeing someone of my generation with a similar life experience to talk about. There were sets of established questions. "What's your major?" "Where are you from originally?" "What classes are you taking?"

Those who know me know that I am a very social being. I'm only mildly extroverted, but I am highly social. I made a lot of friends in college because a lot of the "work" of finding friends had been done for me by circumstance.

This set-up is almost too good for a socialite such as myself. I soon found myself with more acquaintances than I could handle. There were so many people with whom I always planned on getting coffee or "hanging out sometime soon." I couldn't go anywhere without seeing someone I had to greet immediately.

I found pretty quickly that trying to have that many "friends" was spreading myself very thin. There are only so many hours in a day, and I knew that in a moment of decision I would almost always choose being with people over doing my homework. People are important, but I had to learn to give up on the idea that I would be able to get to know everyone deeply. It's a sad and sobering truth, but I simply don't have enough time to get to know every human being I see.

While I struggled with over-socialization during my coursework, my problems with post-college life have been quite opposite. I have a handful of close friends, and we're always busy. We find time to be together, and when we do, it's always a blast, but it is markedly different from the omnipresence of social stimulus that I had in college.

My wide network of acquaintances and my close group of friends have taught me quite a bit about life and investing in others.

For a long time I associated "closeness" with the amount of time one occupies in another's life, but I think that a better measure of friendship is how much space one occupies in another's heart. I don't see my "adult" friends all the time, but the time we have together is special. While the "golden years" of college may be over, I still have plenty of "golden moments" to follow. To say the least, I am excited.

Friendships on TV shows finally make sense. Getting together and "catching up" is a real thing. I am finding that friends don't have to exist in the same space, doing the same activities, living similar lives. We don't need to be the same to have the same heart. Friends can just be friends.