I hated getting advice in high school. It was never practical, it was always world weary.
- “You thought high school was hard? Wait till college.”
- “Professors aren’t like teachers. They don’t let you get away with anything.”
- “Forget about your high school friends, you’ll make better ones at college.”
What I wouldn’t have given for something like, “You don’t have to ask permission to go the bathroom in class. Just leave.”
Alas.
Anyway, the advice I found particularly grating was that “forget your friends” pearl of wisdom.
I’m stubborn by nature, and I’m hard to advise, but I think anyone balks at the idea that those who are closest to you at this very moment might not be so close to you in a year, or four years, or ten years. It minimizes the effect these people have had on you, and you on them. It detracts from the value your youthful friendships have on your adulthood.
It also makes fate out of something that is in fact a choice, as most relationships are. It’s always your choice to stay close to friends who may be distant from you. It’s also hard as hell, which is really what the problem is. People underestimate how hard it is to keep friends once you stop seeing them daily.
We also underestimate the appeal of finding friends in college who are categorically different from high school friends by virtue of several criteria. College friends have the common ground not only of school, but of living and dining quarters. And by the time you graduate, most of your friends are in a related career field by virtue of all your common classes.
High school friends are not always chosen, sometimes (particularly at a small school), because of shared interests. Often you find yourself content to befriend people who may actually be quite different from you, but you flex toward each other because you crave the relating that comes from friendship. This makes these friendships unique, sometimes odd when you look back, but also harder to maintain. What do you have to talk about once you lose that common ground of…literal common ground.
In truth, and in part because of the advice I got to ditch my high school friends, I clung to them with sharpened claw-like nails. I called everyone, all the time. I wrote letters, I had them visit, I IMed everyone all the time. I was obsessed and paranoid, and as a result I didn’t make a lot of lasting friends at college. But post-college I also was able to come back home and resume many of those high school relationships with ease. (However, it’s almost easier to get lazy about friends in proximity and lose them through virtue of “I’ll see them next week/month/season”)
Here’s my turn at some “friend” advice for college. Make good friends where you can. There are a shortage of perfect people in the world, so if you find one of those gems, hold on to them (maybe not with claws). It’s entirely possible you found one (or many) of those gems in high school. While that means you had an awesome high school experience, it does mean college will be tricky for you when it comes to finding a way to balance your history with your new life.
Try. It’s never bad to at least try and put effort in to holding onto good friends, wherever you find them. If anything, it builds some kind of decent character.
Yeah okay, there’s a reason “ditch your high school friends” is much more liberally sprinkled about. It’s shorter.
How about this, then: Make good choices. I think that says it all, doesn’t it?
Notes from the Sea 