High school friends are great, but when you get to college and make new friends, you realize how different the two actually are.
In high school, you and your friends lived with your parents, possibly on opposite sides of town. In college, you make friends with the people in your dorm, and maybe even on your floor. You spend more time in each other’s dorms in a week than you may have ever spent in your high school best friend’s house, and without parents to lay down the law, spontaneous sleepovers, pizza parties, and dance parties happen on an almost daily basis.
High school lunches were very structured, and having friends in “your lunch” was essential. College lunches, however, are wherever and whenever you want to eat, so you can coordinate with your friends. And forget a bagged lunch, you can stop in the commons for unlimited sides and dessert, check out one of the restaurants in town, or grab something to go from the MSC. You can have lunch in a different place at a different time with a different friend every day.
When you practically live with 20 other people, you get to know each other so much faster than it is possible in high school. Your college friends feel like family after a month, whereas it may have taken a few years to get to the same place with your high school squad. And in college, it’s really important to have those friends that feel like family, they are your main support system while you’re away from home.
Your high school friends probably called your parents ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ sometimes, whereas your college friends more than likley have never met your parents. They’re often super excited by the opportunity to meet your folks – and vice versa. When your parents meet your college friends, they’re likely to take the whole squad out for dinner and offer up hugs to all.
I can’t speak for everyone, but no matter how close I get to my friends in college, I will always have a place in my heart for the friends that stood by my side on graduation day.