The ever changing social dynamic in college
The college experience is stereotypically known for focusing on the word “new”: Try new things, meet new people, create new adventures, etc., cliché, yet another banality. This can be frightening for someone like myself, who is more introverted and only learned to embrace such a quality when entering college.
We are so focused on finding new things to discover while in college that when something becomes ordinary or stable we want to cling to it, never let it go, give it a home, a blanket, and a mug of tea—but we can’t. Not for a true college experience.
Specifically, I want to address the topic of making friends in college.
I was that quirky college freshman, the one who was petrified of what people would think if I wanted to stay in by myself on a Friday night and watch “New Girl.” Simply put, I wanted friends who would appreciate my quirks, my pet peeves, and my rants on why Fall Out Boy is still relevant.
During my freshman year, I had one friend group with whom I spent almost all of my time. I met some of these friends at Orientation in 2014, but made most of my friends while living in my freshman dorm, McShain Hall.
It was, admittedly, nice and comforting to have all my friends only a few flights of stairs away from me. I lived on the first floor of McShain, but most of my friends lived on the fourth floor. It was nice to know people that lived in other parts of the building whom I could always rely on.
While I was fortunate enough to have made friends meeting my criteria, I almost made a grave error. The kind of error where if my life was a sci-fi movie, future me would appear to freshman year Vivian to warn her of her mistake.
The truth is, at the time, I thought I did not need any more friends than the ones I had.
While I chose to live in Saint Mary’s Hall my sophomore year, my other friends wanted to live in the various sophomore apartments. Not being able to go up or down a few flights of stairs to see each other challenged us. We actually had to set aside time to have lunch or dinner or just to watch a movie; essentially, our friendships with each other required more effort.
Living in Saint Mary’s, I was around a small, caring community of people. The only problem was, I hardly knew them. During the very beginning of my first semester of sophomore year, I never took the time to get to know the other residents because I had other friends, people who I already knew and knew me.
I would spend late nights talking with some of the residents of Saint Mary’s; we would all hang out in the living room and no matter who walked in, everyone was always welcome. This was my favorite part of Saint Mary’s—no matter what, someone was always happy to see you. Several of the residents of Saint Mary’s became some of my closest friends. As a result, some of my friends from freshman year made spending time together difficult and aggravating.
By my second semester of sophomore year, I realized not every friend is willing to put forth the same effort as you do in order to make a friendship work. Spending time with some of my former friends became more of a burden than the actual enjoyment I felt in Saint Mary’s. College was not the first time that I grew apart from friends, but for some reason this experience seemed different.
The difference was that, in college, there is an expectation that the friends you make are the friends you’ll have for life, but this is not always the case. I have made friends I will always have, will always talk to, and are entirely too grateful for, but I also lost some friends over the past few years. Though this was difficult, it took me some time to realize it is alright for this to happen; in fact, it’s quite natural.
Losing friends from your freshman year cannot and should not hinder the rest of your college experience. Having friends that make you feel unwelcome or do not, as the cliché goes, provides a two way street for your friendship, is exhausting and frustrating.
I still have some of the same friends I did as a freshman, but there are people I do not see or even speak to now as a junior, because we simply grew apart. College is about making new friends throughout your four years. You are not limited to just making friends your freshman year and required to be friends with only these people throughout college.
I have never had one friend group that I hang out with at every waking moment of my life, because I never felt the need to be in only one friend group. I like being nomadic and travelling from one group to the next and being around lots of different people.
My original criteria that I wanted in friends, I discovered, was not difficult to meet. Finding friends who would accept me for all my quirks was as easy as saying ‘hi’ to the person sitting next to me. My issue was, in fact, just the opposite—I found many friends and tried to limit myself in my relationships. Take a leaf out of my book of college experiences and never feel guilty for growing out of some friendships while gaining new ones along the way.
