Entering into college, the first thing you want to accomplish is finding a stable friend group. Some people are fortunate enough to come to college with people they already know. Others have to start fresh and make new friends as they go. For me, I only knew about a handful of people coming to UL, and I didn’t exactly know them well enough to even hang out with them. The majority of these people were older students that I went to high school or middle school with. Only one person coming to UL with me was one of my graduating classmates. Of course, starting college is one of the most stressful times, but it is also one of the best times because you are finally branching out of your own home and making decisions based off of what you believe, rather than what your parents believe. That barrier of the parent to child relationship no longer exists because you are finally entering college to become the person you want to be.

Creating your first inner circle of friends at college can be a good thing, or a bad thing. It really just depends on how well these people influence you. For me, I had a pretty stable group, mainly because it was just people throughout my classes. They were more like study groups, if you ask me. There were some people that I genuinely liked and others I knew weren’t trying to be my friend at all. That’s the thing you have to remember when you come to college; everyone is here for himself or herself, not you. You cannot always trust that people are being nice to you because they want you to be their friend. In other words, they could just be using you for your intellect or in my case, to try and manipulate you in order to make themselves look better. I never thought I would have a relationship like that, up until now. Recently, I have opened my eyes up to the relationships that I have because I no longer want to be manipulated by people. I have been manipulated my entire life, by people who I thought were friends, and quite frankly, I am tired of it. There is one thing that I want to say to all of those who treated me in that manner; thank you.

Thank you for opening up my eyes to people who do care. Without you, I would have never found the people that look at me for who I really am and not as someone they can manipulate. Those people actually give a damn about who I am striving to be. Those people realize that there is more to me than meets the eye. They do something that you could never do; care. Did you ever really care about who I was or what I was trying to do as your friend, or did you just see me as some weirdo who followed you around everywhere? I knew that when I was gone you were talking bad about me behind my back. There are ears everywhere. Anyway, that’s not my main point here. What I am really getting at is that you allowed me to see the things that God wanted me to see in the first place. Even though I suffered through the tough times you bestowed on me, God was carrying me along to the people He really wanted me to see. Maybe He felt like in order to get to that person, you needed to be an obstacle for me. God used you to build me up. You weren’t there to tear me down; you were there to build me up. So thank you for all the times that you made me feel the way I did, because now I can open my eyes up to people that really matter to me.

As my days in college pass by, I begin to see those who should be in my life. I can point out those that wont really matter, and those that will be with me for the rest of my life. I have come to realization that it is not about how many people you know, but who are the ones that will stay. It could be 20 people, or it could be 5 people. Quantity does not matter; it’s quality that does. So, find those people who mean the most to you, who care about you, and want to see you grow each and every day. Those are the people that God wants you to have in your life, and those are the people who will change your life forever. If there is anything you should take from this is that you should never let anyone manipulate you into something they want to see. Be who you want to be and if they don’t like it, you don’t need them. College is a place where you are trying to become who you want to be and not what someone else wants to be. So, find the people that are going to support you in everything that you do, because those are the people that truly care about YOU.