When I was a girl scout, we learned the phrase "make new friends, but keep the old", and I decided iI don't really want to follow that anymore. There is nothing wrong with not making a lot of friends in college. Everyone always says “get involved” “make lifelong friendships” “You’ll find your second family in college”. Well I have decided that these don’t have to be the norms that everyone follows. I’m going to be honest here: it’s hard to make friends, especially when things get too busy for you to be super involved. On top of it being hard to make friends, maybe I'm just happy with the ones I already have.

In my time thus far at college, I have found a small group of friends that I get along with and greatly enjoy hanging out with on campus, as well as some acquaintances that get me through the classes I'm in, and for me this is enough. I still have an amazing set of friends back home that I see on breaks and holidays, and talk to several times a week that keep me sane and together too. I find that people who have to keep up with large friend groups tend to have more drama and more time in their lives consumed by trying to coordinate everything at different times to make it work. I don’t have the time or energy to be involved with this many people, nor do I want the drama that comes along with big friend groups.

On top of avoiding drama, it’s also easier because I don’t have to do the introduction and getting to know each other thing with too many people. I can be social, but I tend to be more shy, or don’t always know how to start conversations with people. I never know what is pushing the boundaries too far, or what makes things go too far with new people. I know some people don’t always have the same humor as I do, and it takes time to get used to how other people mesh with your actions. Making friends at college is not like making friends in middle school. In fact, I don’t even truly remember how I would start friendships when I was younger; all of a sudden, friendships would just be formed without much work involved to make it happen.

Another issue I have with making lots of friends at school is finding people with similar interests or life goals. A lot of times, even if you’re in the same classes and organizations as people, you still may not all share the same goals and opinions about the world, and that makes it super difficult to be compatible as friends. If someone has different political views than I do and they enter the field of regular living, this could lead to some major disagreements. Now I'm not opposed to hearing people’s opinions, and taking them to heart, but if their opinions are harmful to me or people I know, or they are just too crude to agree with, naturally it will be hard to make friends with a person like this. Also, if people were brought up differently that I was, and have different personality traits that contrast my own, things may be challenging or tense at times too.

I’m not saying friendships like this are impossible to maintain, and I'm not saying I will never turn to new friends to develop and help my own mind based on new opinions. However, if someone is so deeply different than I am, I would rather stick to the friends I already know and love. (When it comes to looking for someone to date though, the tables may turn a bit because you can’t just date inside your friend group).