Not to sugar coat the matter, but all of your teachers, parents, aunts, uncles, and basically every adult in your life was right when they said that at your high school graduation you would be seeing most of your classmates for the last time. As a sophomore this year, I can definitely attest to that fact that certain friendships struggle to survive when you’re not automatically seeing each other five days a week. College is an amazing experience where you have so many opportunities to find your people and to find yourself, but that unfortunately means for a lot of people that signed your senior yearbook “best friends for life” really ended up meaning “best friends until the end of the summer.” With that being said, it is still very possible to maintain the friendships of people that you’ve known you’re entire life if you make the necessary changes and recognize that your friendship is evolving with the rest of your life.
1. Putting in effort is key.
Like I said before, you and your friends from back home don’t have school anymore to hold you together and lunch period everyday to hang out and talk. It’s an adjustment to schedule time into your life to see/talk to the people that you’re used to having around every day, but believe me when I say it won’t happen unless you make sure it does. Freshman year keeps you busy, but phone calls every few days don’t take up that much time and can give an opportunity to stay updated on each other’s lives. Speaking of which:
2. Your friends are going to have a whole group of friends that you don’t know; it’s really weird at first, but roll with it.
I’ve had the same close knit group since kindergarten, so when freshman year of college approached, the thought of my best friends having other best friends honestly annoyed me quite a bit. It was weird having my friends tell me stories about their adventures at school and not knowing anyone they were talking about, or recognize the people tagged in all their Instagram photos, but I eventually realized that this distance provided me with the room to branch out as well and find people that complete me in so many other ways. As the wise Mindy Kaling once said, “best friend isn’t a person, it’s a tier,” and you can surprise yourself with how many people you connect with if you open yourself up to it.
3. Remember that friendship is a two-way street.
Life changes a lot once you move into that freshman dorm or first apartment, so if you’re feeling disappointed with the effort your friend has put into staying in touch with you, just know he or she is probably feeling just as overwhelmed as you are about their new life, and might not know where they fit into yours anymore. Don’t get discouraged, and don’t be afraid to reach out. Try to incorporate your old friends into your new life as much as possible, whether that means having them come visit you for weekend, or road-tripping to see them and crashing in their dorm. As clichéd as it is, the best thing to hold on to in life really is each other, and the best kinds of friends aren't the ones that you outgrow, but the ones that grow with you.
