Growing up, my mom always told me that I only need a handful of real friends. She told me that I may even meet my best friends and the person I’m going to marry when I go to college. As a teenager who’s found a friend group and a relationship during my sophomore year, I thought she was crazy. Little did I know she’s never been more right.
The town that I live in was very fond of cliques and eventually as we grew up, the people became more open and accepting of those who weren’t in their core friend groups but still belonged to a certain group whether they said it out loud or not. But let’s be real, this is the case in many areas and it’s not a terrible thing and its nothing being done on purpose; it’s simply human nature.
Anyways, I thought I found my core group of friends when I was a sophomore in high school and we were closer than ever. We all came together through similar interests in dance and music taste and things seemed great. I knew these girls were going to be in my life forever. As we grew together, we expanded our friend group and I got to be close friends with even more people. I felt great! I was having fun, I enjoyed their company and I felt these people really understood me. It wasn’t until the following year when things began to get a little rocky.
Once junior year came along, I think we got to the point of feeling 100 percent comfortable with each other and felt that certain jokes could be made, insults weren’t taken to heart and honesty was accepted, no matter how brutal it may feel. It was all fun and games and nothing was taken to heart for a while, until I felt like I became a target. Certain jokes were made at me which started as jokes, but jokes can only be funny for so long. There comes a point when the same joke is made so often that you start to think, ‘hey, maybe these people actually feel this way about me.’
But for almost a year and a half I let the jokes and comments roll off my shoulder because these people were my best friends, they wouldn’t actually feel this way about me. Eventually I felt like I had enough and I talked to them about how I was feeling and, long story short, they said they were sorry and that they got what I was saying, but about a week later, they bounced right back. Even though I was feeling targeted and slightly attacked by my “best friends.” I found it hard to completely let go and cut them out of my life. But I examined the situation and I asked myself, ‘is this feeling of guilt and confusion about what I’m doing for them to treat me this way worth staying friends?’ So after a lot of thinking and practicing my break up speech, I cut a couple of them off, which then led to the rest of the group not speaking to me.
Although I was left eating lunch alone and not going out on the weekends with anyone other than my boyfriend at the time, I felt a lot better, almost like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was a little rough going through the rest of the year into my senior year without friends. I cried a lot, felt like I was alone, and always questioned myself and blamed myself. I felt like it was something about me that was making it difficult to be friends with me. Why was I singled out? Why did they give me a code name to talk about me while I was sitting at the lunch table with them? What did I do for them to hate me so much?
It was hard to open up to anyone after dropping them. The only person that I felt comfortable with was my boyfriend at the time but I also felt like I was that girl who only hung out with her boyfriend and stole her boyfriend from his friends. It took some time but I remember waking up one day and telling myself that I did not do anything wrong. I felt that some of the friendships I had were toxic and I put my own health and happiness first and took myself out of the situation. I apologized for ever hurting anyone when I talked to them about why I couldn’t be friends with them anymore and I took responsibility for the valid reasons why they treated me the way they were, which still didn’t justify the treatment.
When I finally accepted the fact that me separating myself from them was not a bad thing, I made it my mission to find new friends who I could trust and who enjoyed my company rather than sulking and being alone. I eventually found a group of four girls who respected me, treated me well and made me feel happy and accepted. We still keep in touch to this day, and after going away to college and meeting my roommates and my friends up here, I realized that these were what real friends were. I’m a sophomore in college now and since I started as a freshman at Pace, I haven’t felt targeted, singled out, uncomfortable, or unaccepted when hanging out with my friends now like I did in high school.
If you, whoever is reading this, are feeling like they don’t know where they belong, has lost a best friend or friends, and simply feel like things are never going to get better, just know that this is completely normal. Losing friends and gaining more is a part of life. It may feel like the end, it may be hard to get over and it might take you some time but that’s okay. You are going to find your real friends, you’re going to find people who accept you and love you for who you are and you will feel comfortable with those people. Don’t shut down and accept that you were the problem because you are not. You and your happiness comes first and your friends should accept that without an explanation. And don’t hold a grudge towards those you lost because they’re only helping you find where you’re supposed to be and who is supposed to be in your life. If anything, thank them, move on and don’t look back and if in the future you cross paths again, remember where you are now and where you’re headed.