Senior year is a slow sneaking panic filled with last minute friends, changes and a realization that college is right around the corner. It’s perhaps the best/saddest year of your life (right before you enter your new world of college of course). You’re going to meet people your last two months and be like “why didn’t I meet these people four years ago!?” You’re probably going to also get your first F in your whole entire life just because you’ve already been accepted into your dream college so why do that 10-page required essay for AP US Government. NOPE. Perhaps one of the biggest realizations of your senior year though, will be the fact that your best friend is not going to be joining you at the same college.
The one person who has been by your side through these four torturous years, whose family you have decided to adopt as your own, and the one person you couldn’t imagine college without. While you’re having a meltdown wondering what you could have possibly done in your past life to deserve this kind of perpetual misery, I’m going to tell you that there’s really nothing to worry about. Going to a different college than your best friend will probably be the best thing for your friendship.
Everyone who has experienced senior year had the talk with their best friend about the wonders of going to college together. One of your master plans perhaps included how both of you would take the same exact classes but sit on opposite sides of the room to force yourselves into making friends with other people. You both have come up with so many great plans on how to expand during college that you haven’t really noticed how that worked out for you in high school. Freshmen year it was all fun and games meeting new people, having lunch with them, becoming instant friends. But by senior year when you’ve already found the one person you can tolerate and not get tired of seeing every. single. day, you realize it’s just better to chill out and just keep to yourselves. I mean, no one has more hilarious, deep and stimulating conversations other than you guys! No one else could possibly explain this bond.
Going to college with your best friend and actually being able to expand your group and meet new people is honestly such a rare sighting that I’d have to give major kudos to those who have done this successfully.
Going to a different college than your best friend may very well be the best thing for your friendship. The first two weeks will be hell. You’re all alone in this new place your parents dumped you at, your roommate is a Chatty Kathy, and you’ve yet to really click with anyone you’ve crossed paths with. This is where the test comes in. if you two are truly as close as you’ve felt for these past four years, they will be by your side every step of the way. They’ll be there for you when you start feeling homesick, they’ll be there for you when you wish you would have gone to the same college as them, and they’ll be there for you encouraging you not to give up. If your so called best friend has met her new gang and hasn’t called to check up on you, then it’s a good idea to question what kind of bond you too really had. Going to different colleges will put your friendship to the ultimate test.
Any friendship is a 50/50 commitment just like any other important commitment which means you’re going to need to put in some effort yourself. You’re going to have to ask about their new friends and what they’re like, and what crazy adventures they had last weekend. You’re going to have to listen to your best friend ramble on about her new friend who is just such an amazing and fun loving hippie and you’re going to be there listening patiently with a pinch of worry wondering if this is the new person they will replace you with. If you both truly have faith in your friendship, I guarantee you there’s nothing to worry about. Once the days, and the weeks, and the months start passing by, you would have collected your bath of friends while still continuing to talk; maybe even everyday. As time passes you always get to know people a little better and who could possibly be more suitable to complain to about your one friend who is just the biggest pain in the ass to? Your best friend in the whole wide world. This will be the person you come to for an outside opinion when things are going south with your new friends, this is the person who will never get tired of you talking about the same thing over and over again.
Going to a different college may seem like the scariest thing in the world especially when you feel like you’re losing one of the most important people to you, but if you two really work at it and have a little bit of faith you may even get to learn a little more about the person you assumed you knew everything about. Going to a different college is a blessing to any durable friendship. You give each other a chance to grow and to discover new things that maybe you would have never known if you went to college together. Although within the years to come you will undoubtedly make friendships that may last a life time, no one will ever be able to break the bond between you and your best friend. Especially not with the one who knows your every secret and has a copy of every double-chined face you’ve ever made. This is the kind of friendship that will last a lifetime. I guarantee it.
