I remember being in middle school and high school thinking that I could make it in with the popular crowd simply because I had known some of them in their pre-puberty days. I took their politeness as friendliness and considered us friends.

I'm not sure what came first, realizing it wasn't true or realizing that I didn't want it to be true. Think about it. Despite any bullies you may have had, you were not a talking point for every student in the school. No one cared when someone else wore your boyfriend's sweatshirt while you were on vacation. No one stared at you if you had a public fight with someone. Compared to all of them, you flew under the radar. And honestly, I am now glad that it happened that way.

Because when you get to college, you find out how real popularity works. You know that saying, you're popular in your own friend group? Well, hate to break it to you, but that is one of the most direct truths you will ever meet. I'm not saying I didn't have a few dud friendships, because I did. But you find out who is genuinely open to your friends because you are all starting at the same point in your lives.

For most people, their first friend at college is their roommate. While I do love my first roommate, she was not the first friend I made. (Backstory, she was a year ahead and was not moving in until after freshman orientation). The first friend I really made was an Irish exchange student who was completely out of her element but asked if she could sit with me during the orientation. We're still friends to this day, wherever she is in the world. That chance encounter opened the floodgate. It led to me meeting her roommates, then her roommate's friends. I met a girl in my year (something that didn't work out because she was crazy) but that let me to meeting some of the best friends I have ever had in my life.

My point is, even if there is someone at your college that went to your high school, the majority of people don't remember the time you had an accident in elementary school, or when you fumbled your way through presentations in high school. It's a blank slate and nobody cares about anybody's past.

The picture I have for my headline was taken during Senior Ball at college. Everyone in that picture changed my life in one way or another, for the better. They made me see myself for who I was, not for who I wanted to be in high school.

Drop whatever act you're putting on for the world. Once you do that, you'll see just how many genuine friends you really have.