Being a college freshman is weird. There’s no way getting around it. You can call it good weird, bad weird, or in between, but no matter how you slice it, you’re still dealing with establishing yourself socially. This is even weirder considering where you last were: a high school senior. I was pretty grounded in my group of friends by that point. I wasn’t going out and looking for other people to get to know, though if those people came along that was fine as well. College, however, is going back to the beginning. I haven’t been back to the beginning, at least to this extent, since 2nd grade, when I moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia. Since then, I’ve been able to carry elementary school friends into middle school, then middle school ones into high school. I’ve always had someone—and while those high school connections haven’t left me, I still, in some ways, came to Susquehanna with a blank slate (excluding my wonderful roommate who I had met at a summer writing workshop).
During orientation weekend, panic set in. At least for me. I needed friends. I was starting all over. I couldn’t do this. Could I?
The next step in social evolution for me was making friends with the girls in my hall. We live together, after all, so it’s pretty natural for us to join together, especially in the face of friendless-ness. Once we bonded, especially over the first non-orientation weekend, it was such a relief. I didn’t expect to have a group of people to hang out with so quickly!
However, another step eventually comes, and it seemed to hit a lot of my friends at the same time as it hit me: realizing a need for relationships outside of the hallway. Friendships with the people you live with are great, but I think everybody feels that need for a change of pace. After all, you see a lot of those friends from your floor. You do live with them, after all.
I think I’m at the point in my social evolution where I’m hoping to branch out and am getting to know other people. Right now there are a lot of acquaintances, people I say “Hi” and “How are you?” to if I see them as I cross campus, people who fall into this category of potential friends. The next step, if I take some action, should be translating acquaintanceship to friendship.
This step seems to require a bigger leap than the others, but I think it’s probably one of those things that happens naturally with time. As a freshmen, I would guess friendships evolve, expand, shift, and include new people.
Of course, sometimes my patience isn’t all it could be in this regard. It’s easy to want those closest of close friendships right away. A friendship like you have with your best friend back home. A dynamic like your group had in high school. These things don’t happen overnight, however. They require cultivation. Evolution. Not spontaneous generation.
But that’s alright. Spontaneous can be shallow, and right now, I’m not seeking friendships that will be blown away come next semester. Like most freshmen, I think, I’m looking for friendships with roots.
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