Growing up, you have your “forever friend." The one that you meet in kindergarten or the one friend that you went up to on the playground and confidently asked to be your friend. But once you get older, those friendships evolve through middle and high school. Those friends helped you go through your awkward stages; those friends supported you through a time of insecurity.
However, you may outgrow your friends. Once you leave high school, you either have the tendency to keep those friends or start anew in university. And that’s OK; it’s just the beginning of a new period in your life.
Friendships start in the most unlikely ways—maybe sitting next to each other in class or just a random double date, like what happened to us. But those types of friendships can last for a very long time. You bond over the smallest things like a love for cats or old films. Even though you might be polar opposites at times, you somehow move on the same wavelength.
Let me tell you how this unlikely yet totally perfect friendship was started. I, Sylvia, was a new member in my sorority and Vanessa was the fabulously dressed and serious-faced Vice President of the chapter. She was the girl we all see and we think to ourselves “I want to be her friend.” She was just so intimidating to me because she seemed to have her life together and was such an adult.
As life would have it, my boyfriend is her boyfriend’s Little Brother in their fraternity (and they are best friends from high school). They wanted to go to a comic book convention together, and thought it would be a fun double date. Even though Vanessa and I were sisters, we still hadn’t had much conversation, just small talk. Now I had to find a way to talk to this girl for two days at the convention. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous. But as luck would have it, we were perfect together. We liked similar things and conversation flowed so easily. We made beautiful memories that are now the foundation of our friendship.
However, the more we hung out, the more we realized that despite the similarities, our personalities can be very different. To give you an idea, I can be known to be moody, reclusive at times and despise too much social interaction unless completely necessary. She on the other hand is a people person. She is the one that brings me out of my hermit shell to talk to people and get me out of my comfort zone. She is like the sunshine to my rainy day. Don’t misunderstand—we both hate too much social interaction and love staying home and watching movies instead of partying or clubbing. We are both sarcastic and sassy when needed (one of us more guilty than the other), but there is a balance that is brought out because of our friendship. She tells me to be nicer to people and give them a chance, while I tell her to not be so kind with people that don’t deserve it. I also take her out sometimes but that is besides the point. The point is that we are similar yet opposites.
We create balance in our lives where there rarely is any. This is what makes us best friends, I think. We are different yet we bring out the things that the other needs. I know we will be very close for a while because we build each other up and we just have fun with each other even during the serious times. Opposites attract but without similarities, they are destined to drift apart. I think we found the perfect balance between those two extremities.
