When I was in high school, I had a few different social groups. Whether it was certain classes, extracurriculars or a job, I was constantly surrounded by friends. My main group was about nine people: we were always together in some form or another, riding to lunch with each other, exchanging Christmas presents and promising to keep in touch after we graduated. High school ended, and we all kept our promises... For the summer. After that, people headed in different directions. I went to college an hour away and maintaining a friendship with someone back home was hard. Everyone was busy and nobody had time to reminisce about the good ol' days.
At first, I was upset. Where were all of my friends? Was it me? I'd come home to visit and realize there was only one or two people I actually wanted to see who also wanted to see me. There was no more Christmas exchanges. There wasn't even conversation anymore.
While I was upset in the beginning, I've come to learn something about high school friendships: They usually end. It's easy to be friends with people you see everyday. It's an unwavering constant. You have things in common because you have the same classes, you live in the same town. However, when that consistency ends, you discover that maintaining friendships isn't as easy as it once seemed. You run out of things to talk about. Your conversations become work. Looking back on some of my "friends" in high school, I realize that I didn't know much about them. We never hung out outside of school. We were friends for convenience sake.
Now, as a sophomore in college, I have about three very close friends from high school (with one of them being my boyfriend, so that barely counts). Their friendship isn't simply based on our close proximity (my best friend lives an hour and a half away). We genuinely have things in common. We care about each other. We make the effort to maintain. The adult friendships I have made so far have been much better than those from when I was younger because there's a real connection and effort. Because I'm friends with people I truly want to be friends with, people that I have things in common with and that I try to make a point of seeing, I don't have many friends. I could probably count the number of people I would invite to my apartment to see my new furniture on one hand. But that's OK. Friendship shouldn't be a loose connection given to anyone. Friends are the people you call when it gets real, so it's OK to choose them wisely.
