College can be the most exciting time in a young person’s life, but it can also be the most stressful, nail-biting, hair-pulling-out, screaming-into-your-pillow time as well. Without friends to keep us grounded, very few of us would make it to the stage on graduation day.
While all types of friends are equal in importance, they aren’t equal in role. In my experience over the last three and a half years, friends typically tend to fall into five categories.
The Four A.M. Friend
- This is the person that you can call at the most ridiculous hours and they’re going to answer, no questions asked. Whether it’s for an impromptu fast-food run, panicking over finals, or those moments when you need a heart-to-heart RIGHT NOW, they’ll always answer your call with no hesitation. The conversations you’ll have with them can be either deeply philosophical or a giggling mess of incomprehensible inside jokes. They see you in your rattiest sweatpants and your stained shirts from summer camp and they love you anyway.
The Frenemy
- This friend is the one that you have all of your classes with, and you’re friendly on the outside. On the inside, however, you both have this deep seeded sense of competition toward the other, and are always on a constant trek to outdo each other. This might sound unhealthy, but as long as it doesn’t get too extreme, it can be a mutually beneficial relationship. By competing with this person, you are always motivated to push yourself scholastically. Just make sure you can still grab a friendly drink with the Frenemy after the big exam.
The “Pick-Up-Where-We-Left-Off” Friend
- These are the people that you can not talk to for days, weeks, or months, but you can call them up at any time and there’s never an awkward moment where you have to get re-acquainted. This is probably the person you started talking to in your Spanish 101 class freshman year and wound up becoming lifelong friends. After not talking for three months, you send them a funny gif you found on Tumblr and before long you’re gabbing like you never stopped. Then the conversation will fade after a couple of days into a comfortable silence, until the next hilarious cat meme brings you together again.
The Newest-and-Truest Friends
- As in, the people you’ve only known for a few weeks or a couple of months but you feel like they’re the missing piece to the puzzle of your soul. They get you on a level that shouldn’t be possible for such a newly blossomed friendship, but you still find yourself opening up to them about things you don’t even like to think about yourself. These are, in my opinion, the best types of friendships, when you meet someone and instantly ‘click’ with them. Suddenly, polite smiles across the room in class become screaming in the car to 90s songs and beaming each other with friendly insults at all hours of the day, and you can’t imagine that you didn’t even know their name six months ago.
The Counselor Friend
- Your significant other dumped you, you’re fighting with your parents, you failed a big midterm, it doesn’t matter. This is the person you turn to for advice and for a shoulder to cry on. Even though they’re at least roughly the same age as you, they have an heir of wisdom and tranquility that grounds you in your most high-strung moments. They always know exactly what to say and how to say it. They let you cry on them when you need it, and tell you to suck it up and deal when you’re being unreasonable. The counselor is the most likely to incite an argument when they aren’t as sympathetic as you’d like them to be, but they’re forgiven when you realize they were right to hit you with some tough love.
You’ll meet dozens of people in college. Some you’ll love, some you’ll hate, some will be a mix somewhere in between. Some will be friends for now, others will become friends for life.
