In a lifetime, there are many friends that one will make. There are the friends you made in Kindergarten over sharing glue during craft time. There are the middle school friends that were made over wishing you had the latest Hollister shirt or carrying your instrument cases around school because you were in band. Then there were the friends you made in high school who you swore would be by your side forever. And then there was graduation.
Most friends do not stay together forever. When you think about it, there are so many phases of life and throughout it we are constantly changing who we are and remaking ourselves. We move on to different hobbies, move away, or just become distant with each other. Sometimes it is for bittersweet reasons, sometimes it is for the best. Life is not made to make sense. What does make sense is that it is unpredictable. Many times, the friends who are made for a season or a point of time are known to the psychology world as “Point in Time Friends.” These friends were there when you needed them to be, but you were unable to make it to a deeper level of trust to form a stronger friendship.
Friendship is such an important aspect to life. We all have a need to belong no matter if we are introverted or extroverted. We have a need to have someone there to listen to our problems and make us not feel so insane. We need someone to be there to provide laughter and inside jokes. Someone that will understand us and be willing to hear us out on why we are upset.
In college, friendship seems to become a more important entity. People are obsessed about the social scene and who you know. Social media is based on who you tag in your pictures. Gossip is forever engraved in society so there is no escaping it. All of this makes friendship harder, but it makes the ones you do find worth it. It is very easy to find yourself feeling alone in college and that everyone is talking about you. There is no escaping the gossip because if people have lips, they are going to find a way to use them for purposes not associated for good use. There are bound to be feelings hurt because of a picture posted from the other night and a subtweet taken the wrong way, but communication is key. The basis of a good friendship is being able to talk about your issues and what may have offended the other person. It begs for the maturity to talk to the other person instead of letting the issue fester. If it is let go, maybe the friendship really wasn’t worth it. Friendship is a two-way street that begs for both parties to be honest and true to each other. A friendship that is built on lies, is not a friendship and will fall into the hole of being a point in time friendship.
“Be a best friend, tell the truth, overuse I love you.” – Lee Brice