Brief Thoughts on Friendship

I was catching up with a friend yesterday and I asked her: "What is the hardest thing for you to adjust to in college?" Her response was that maintaining friendships was hard now. She talked about her experiences, and I realized that she was vocalizing what I also felt. So here I am today to talk about it.

When you're in high school, she explained, your friends were people that you meet on a regular basis, whether it be through classes or some kind of recurring extracurricular activity. You don't have to put in effort to maintain your relationships, because circumstance just forces you together anyways. I definitely abused this in high school. I remember having friends that I talk to exclusively in a certain class and not really connecting with them outside of that time. I've also heard some of my friends talk about having "school friends" and other friends, whom I assume they make actual effort to make plans with and talk to.

I had my boyfriend and that was all I needed was what I figured back then. My parents didn't let me go out, and I think I'm naturally on the introverted side, so I didn't really need to talk to people. Talking and doing stuff with friends is fun, but I could also have fun on my own (through Genshin and Valorant at the time) without running the risk of getting roped into doing something that I don't enjoy as much or my social battery running out in general. I later find out that this is just social anxiety.

So when I get to college, it was so easy to make friends with the people in my dorm, and to only hang out with them. Introducing myself to people is hard. I mean, I already have my friends in my dorm, why do I need to make more friends? That was how I coped with being too scared to talk to people, because I'm self-conscious and think too much about how other people think of me.

It's okay though, I recognize that I need to change that. Fall semester was an adjustment period, so I forgive myself for not doing much of that. I have plans for meeting new people in the spring and pushing myself to do things outside of my comfort zone. I did some of that during IAP and I'm proud of myself for it. I just have to remember to not get complacent with the progress that I have made and continue to make progress.

Over IAP, I've been reconnecting with old friends, both in person and over text. It's nice, I suppose, but I still don't see much point in it. Don't get me wrong, it's a pleasant time to spend catching up with other people, but then I worry about how productive the conversation is, since I'm just catching them up on everything that's happened in my life. I tell the same catch-up stories to different people, and something about that feels a little bit... I don't know, wrong? It feels a little bit scripted. I think this is what normal people do?

Yet again, I don't realize how many adult skills you learn when you're in college. Keeping up with friends is another one of those adult skills, I think. Honestly, it's kind of fun how many things I'm learning.

I suppose I don't have much substantial to say. It's just an observation that I made that I thought was interesting.