For many graduating seniors, the time immediately following your graduation is a sad one. You come to realize everyone will move on to new things and new places. However, a small portion of your class will most likely stay home and never leave. Whether your former schoolmates move away or do not is of the greatest concern. If there are people you wish to stay in contact with it is supremely easy to do nowadays. However, I think that relying on your High School friends is a mistake. They will no longer be around you five days a week. You will find that with some of your “friends” it was merely a friendship of convenience or forced due to the constant proximity.

On the other hand, these friends may be true real friends. But it would be a mistake to try and keep all or even the majority of your old friends. The reason for this is that you do not want to be the same person you were in school. Until you leave your hometown school and are forced to socialize in the world you are molded in what your parents and hometown believed in. You will find that as you age you change your opinions on things that would have sent you into a fury in high school. College and living in the real world does this to people, as a result you may have little or nothing in common with friends you formerly were very close to. I think this can be seen and attested to by many people in the years following their graduation.

Obviously, this piece is not advocating dumping all your former friends and starting anew. However, it is necessary for yourself and your continued growth to cut certain friends out of your life. If they no longer correspond to how you wish to live and what you believe the kindest thing you can do is just cut off the relationship. No one wants to go through a slow process of ending a friendship and watching it fall apart due to lack of interest. Sometimes it does not come this easy though, occasionally you will find yourself being the friend left behind. This is not a bad thing though it may feel and seem as though it is. Instead of sulking you must realize your life is ahead of you. If someone does not want to be in your life do not hold them there or try to retain them. As humans, we meet hundreds if not thousands of people each year. Each and every one of them has the possibility of becoming a new lifelong friend. In summation, I think that friends come and go, even if it's a friend you had all throughout your school years. Who our parents and communities raise us to be and who we really are can be completely opposite. As such the friendships you have established are built on shaky foundations of belief that you have been indoctrinated into. It is no great mystery that as your beliefs change so do your friends.