Coming into college, the one goal I had for the first semester was to come out of it with a solid friend group. I wanted to meet new people and learn about them; I wanted to branch out from high school. So, I jumped at the first opportunity I had to form a friend group. I couldn’t wait for all the potential dorm parties, group picnics, and random side quests we were sure to have.
Only, that was a fantasy I never got to live out.
We were a collection of 10 people, all made up of friends of friends and random people we’d met at J2. A group chat (or three) was made, we had nightly runs to Raising Cane’s and played Cards Against Humanity. Everything seemed great, except for the fact that I only really knew four of the other people in this supposed friend group, and I knew that I had very different values from some of the others. I already knew it wouldn’t work out. And I was right, it blew up. There was no point in trying to force a connection that was never there.
So I thought about the connections I already had: my high school friends. While the love was still there and I knew I could always reach out, it didn’t feel the same anymore. It really was the worst. The friendships I wanted to make were all failures, and the ones I already had pretty much seemed to be the same way.
And then there were the people I met at orientation, or the ones I sat next to in JCL that one time, or the group of girls I sat next to on the first day of school, or the people that seemed to spawn from nowhere at 2 AM in the PCL on a random Sunday night, just all the people whose numbers I got but never texted. Thinking back, there were so many missed opportunities for a friendship, but the first step was never made, and now it’s too late.
My favorite non-friend was the girl who was there throughout all of this. We were kind of just together all the time, maybe it was proximity or the many mutuals we seemed to have, but even then, we didn’t really click. I thought we would never be friends, but at the same time, how could we not, out of everyone, I saw her the most. But by the end of it all, I figured we would just be acquaintances, but not quite friends.
And while I had all these assumptions, I was wrong every single time. That failed friend group? It only brought me closer to those I was actually friends with. The friends I thought I lost from high school? The friendships didn’t fade; they just evolved into what works for us now. And sure, there were definitely missed opportunities where I didn’t reach out to everyone I could’ve, but there were a few that I did text, and some of those people have become my closest friends. As for the girl whom I thought I would never become actual friends with, we now have designated debrief spots on our floor and a running joke regarding our growing codependency.
So, there were definitely friendship fails this first semester, but the world didn’t end even though I didn’t get to live through all those fantasy friend group activities. At the end of the day, I’ve made friendships that’ll last me a lifetime, and the failures that came along the way were more than worth it.