Friends

Last night, inspired by another friend who had done the same thing, I sat down and made a list of the people in my life that I wanted to keep in touch with. Rest assured, lucky reader, chances are you are on it if you care enough to read what I'm writing. It was interesting to see the people I've met, the kind of people I really care about, and how the distribution of the friends I make has changed over time. Like for example the vast majority of my friends in high school were guys. Same thing with first year. Used to be a group of guys, you know how it is.

It surprised me that some people I really wanted to keep in touch with I couldn't even really call a friend just yet, or its still developing, while others I've known for 10+ years.

One thing I realized in college was that I started making more diverse friends, but usually not in groups... usually individuals here and there. Some, people that I see often because of mship and camp, class, research, and others that I don't see as often for the exact same reasons. The upside is I have some really great friends, people from (somewhat...) different walks of life and ways of living... buuut the downside is I don't really have a "group" to always count on to hang out with anymore.

I think college has sort of changed what a friend is to me... used to be that to be a friend we had to hang out outside of any commitments or what-have-you. It's been hard for me to understand, but I realized I care a lot about people that I wouldn't really call up on a random night to hang out. I feel like it would be weird to call them outside of our normal context... but maybe that's a mistaken perception.

I also realized that I don't take a lot of initiative in developing friendships... generally most of the people that I've kept in touch with over the years have made more effort than I have, which I'm really thankful for. I guess I avoided doing so because I tend to look at my commitments and go "shit... this needs to get done... i dont have time to call someone up and go through all the motions...".

From studying 6++ hours a day my first two years to losing (and finding) myself to mentorship the past two, somehow having no time for friends was just the price I paid for my ambitions. Which isn't fair to my friends.... so time for a change. My goal is to take more initiative in maintaining old friendships and forming new ones as well!