I want to preface this article by saying that it isn’t a duel between friends from college and friends from high school to see which one is better. The title is a little misleading, I know. The point of this piece is to compare and contrast the two groups over various fronts: proximity, family, drama, and personality. I’m writing this article in part because after two years of college and growing up in the same hometown for my entire life, I’ve realized that my friendships from both places stack up differently. Here’s my attempt to analyze the differences.

Proximity

At home, most of your friends live near by. The worst-case scenario is a car ride across town, which takes 15 minutes tops. Distance isn’t a thought until you come back home from college. However, nearness is an understatement when discussing the distance between you and your friends at college. All of your friends are on the same campus: walking distance if you aren’t too lazy. College friends aren’t just near by, they’re always around, they’re attending/living in the same place you are and can be seen at any point throughout the day. That is a game changer.

Family

High school friends know your family; they’ve grown up with them. Coming over and chatting with your parents and playing with your siblings is a normal thing. They’ve built a role for themselves as an honorary member of your family clan. College friends constantly hear about your family but don’t know them to the level that the high school ones do. In all reality, college friends see your family members as these ambiguous figures that come down to school a couple of times a year. Maybe your family will take your college friends out to eat as a nice gesture, but the conversation will be surface level questions revolving around what your friend’s studies are.

Now, I’m not trying to dismiss instances of family members getting to know college friends. It most certainly happens; I just think these cases are a bit rare. Furthermore, meeting your college friends' family only a handful of times makes it hard to get to truly know them.

Drama

Your old high school was a small space, and news could travel pretty quickly throughout it. If there was some sort of drama between people, odds were that you would hear about it by the end of the day. A lot of personal information could become public knowledge. All that drama you had to hear about on a daily basis or that you were involved in doesn’t matter in college. People in college are more mature(-ish) and care about more significant things than the trivial gossip of high school. That fight you got in with your ex in high school doesn’t pertain to your college friends. Your college friends aren't necessarily concerned with what you did in the past, but more so focused on what your doing now and in the future.

Personality

Considering a lot of your high school friends have been your friends for years, they know you pretty well. They’ve witnessed whatever phases you've been through. High school friends have a solid understanding of your background and in some ways know you better than you know yourself. On the other hand, College friends come in and gain perspective on how you live your life. They aren’t just seeing you in school and on the weekends, college friends see you around all the time. College friends see you in parts of life that your high school friends weren’t able to, not to mention they are around during the time when you are trying figure your life out.

Despite the two groups' differences, remember both groups are your friends. These are the people that you surround yourself with time and time again. They for some reason see you as a pretty cool person, be thankful for that. Enjoy their company!