I have broken a personal record. I have three close female friends. I make time for them. I set healthy boundaries. They lift me up and I like to think I do the same. While three might seem like an underwhelming number, I have always been horrible about friendships, especially those with other women. It is not that I have not wanted them. Mostly, I have found myself on the outside looking in during most of my past friendships, left out of parties or hang-outs.
Part of this is my own fault. I do not often approach people, hoping that they will come to me, terrified of any form of rejection. And, usually, when I finally do make friends, I get obsessed or I get hurt. I inevitably find a new friend to obsess over and I end up with a chronic ghosting habit. I felt lonely a lot during high school, by my own hand. I ghosted friend groups for one reason or another, despite having a graduating class of only 13. I am an expert at leaving without saying a word.
Leading up to my freshman year of college, I decided that pattern needed to stop, as I found myself with very few connections. I had only one friend from high school, and other than that, my best friends were my boyfriend and my mom — no offense to either of them, they are wonderful. My boyfriend was the only one going with me to a new city. I knew I needed a community to get through college. So, I decided to do the unthinkable: approach other people, even those I already built a relationship with previously. I decided to approach three people, to be exact.
FRIENDSHIP No. 1:
The one friend I had from high school is still one of my closest friends. While we already had an established relationship and had been through around seven years of school together, I felt that I had already let her down. She had been a victim of my chronic ghosting habit before, and despite her forgiveness, I knew I could not do that to her again.
On top of that, she was going to another state for university. I had no idea how to preserve a long-distance friendship. I had failed summer camp friends after saying “let’s keep in touch!” so many times already. I felt an impending sense that we would go off to college, she would make a ton of friends, I would bask in my loneliness and we would forget about each other. I did not want that, but my anxiety often has a paralyzing effect.
Imagine my surprise when she reached out. A text: “How is your first semester going?” I texted back. We kept checking on each other. It felt like a miracle, a lifeline. We set aside time to spend together over breaks, and every time, it felt like picking up where we left off, like neither of us had missed a beat. She taught me that a lot of friendship is just checking on each other, being a quiet but consistent presence in each other’s lives.
FRIENDSHIP No. 2:
The first person I made friends with in college was actually someone I met a couple of years prior at a summer program. She reached out to me over Instagram after I posted that I would be going to SLU. I was scared. I worried that she would find me overbearing, annoying and too much. I remembered that she exuded this cool girl energy that I found intimidating when we first met.
I wanted to be friends with her so badly and to have someone I knew going to the same school as me. I took a breath and told myself that even if we never got close, at least I had an acquaintance. That was something. I attempted to stop myself from my usual patterns with new friends. I decided to take it slow.
When we both finally got to SLU, we just clicked. I had not realized how much we had in common. We both loved literature, similar TV shows and movies. We vented about professors, creepy men on campus and long-dead middle school drama, just for fun. We had compatible senses of humor, and I had not laughed with a friend like that in a long time. And, beyond the surface-level, we both had similar experiences and anxieties. She has become one of the closest friends I have ever had in my long history of relationships. I had never really felt comfortable expressing emotion to friends before, but with her, that changed. She taught me how to be vulnerable, how to tell someone that I love being close to them.
Friendship No. 3:
When I walked into my required freshman Honors Theology course, I unwittingly sat next to one of the best people ever. The first time I sat next to her, I accidentally sat behind a pillar supporting the ceiling so that I could not see a single thing the professor wrote on the board. We quietly joked about it before being quiet and focusing on class. We kept sitting next to each other, eventually sharing notes for the class and studying together for tests. At the start of an intimidating new chapter in my life, I was finally making a new friend.
But, my bad habit struck again. I became afraid that she would not like me, that I was interfering too much with her life. And, if I am being honest with myself, I was afraid to get too close. I began avoiding talking outside of class. Frankly, I was being the worst. As our first semester came to an end, I brought her a Christmas present, a pathetic gift to salvage the relationship. We barely stayed in contact over break, and I felt so guilty. I had a lot of regrets. How could I do that to such a great person?
The next semester, I asked if she wanted to get coffee and catch up. To my surprise and relief, she agreed. After that, I tried not to drop the ball again. Ultimately, allowing myself to succumb to irrational anxieties around emotional vulnerability was selfish. My fear was no excuse for hurting other people. We have continued to grow closer, and she is one of the sweetest, most loyal and funny people I have ever encountered. She has taught me that friendship resides in loyalty, forgiveness and spontaneous laughter-filled late night frozen custard runs.
Ultimately, I am still a messy friend. I still struggle with some of the same things I struggled with before college. I struggle to reach out, to make time for other people. In the end, if I want to have a community, I need to make some improvements. I have learned a lot about friendship in the process. This year, I joined a service-based fraternity and socialized with so many different people. I never would have done that the year before, and I attribute that bravery to my three close friends and what they taught me about consistency, vulnerability and forgiveness.
While I still do not think I will ever be one of those people able to have twenty best friends at once, I know I have a circle of people now. I know I can reach out to any one of my friends, and they will be there for me, and I would move mountains for them. I know we all will celebrate each other’s accomplishments. I no longer doubt my friendships, even long distance ones. I am a better person for the friendships I have built, and I am so excited to see where they go.