Friendships [Pt. 1]

Friendship - it's a tough thing.

When I was younger, I had ~3 "best friends" at any given time. (Clearly I am not monogamous about my "best friendships.") EL, my childhood friend and JB, my next door neighbor were the constants - and the school one changed fairly yearly, depending on who was in classes to pal around with . Not that any of those smaller "best friendships" stopped working out or had major issues, but we just sort of drifted apart due to convenience. It wasn't until I got older that I settled down with NK as my "school" best friend - for real.

Fantastically, none of these have lasted. JB and I have just drifted apart; we're just in completely different places right now, but I have the hope that one day, he and I will come back together, because as much as I feel completely disconnected from him right now, I do still really love him. Sadly, this is not the case for the other two.

EL was my friend, basically from the time I could walk. My mom had enrolled me in Gymboree, and miraculously, I started walking the night before - apparently I wanted a cookie that she was eating across the room. (I should probably mention that it is not entirely my fault that I was so late to walk. We had two cats and two dogs, who flanked me everywhere I went - essentially, they were my example and as I was an expert crawler, I didn't see the need to fix something that wasn't broken.) We used to have epic sleep overs and try to dress alike in the hopes that our parents would be able to tell us apart to take us home from playdates. Later, we became more sophisticated, frequenting the local coffee shop in middle and high school, and being able to spend more time together, since I had just transferred to her school.

NK and I had a shorter span, although it sometimes feels like it was much longer. We started hanging out at the very end of 2nd grade, and things ended for us at the very end of 5th. We, too, had some pretty epic sleepovers, and although we never reached the sophistication of coffee shops that EL and I did, we had started to think we were pretty damn cool by the time we were 11.

These friendships didn't last because EL and NK both hurt me really badly (years apart), repeatedly, and finally I had just had enough and I just stopped talking to them. Perhaps that wasn't the best way of dealing with things, but I just had had it - I was tired of asking for what I needed and trying to make things work. There is only so much work one person can do. I couldn't deal with not being treated as I treated others. In friendships, I tend to be extremely giving. I am sometimes hard to get to know completely, because there is a lot that I feel that I have to hold back, but once I trust you and value us as a friend I am completely loyal and will really show it.

I transferred schools in 8th grade - my town has no high school, so I paid tuition to go to a really good public school nearby. I've noticed a definite pattern to the way I deal with new situations, which actually seems super out of line with the rest of my personality. When I'm in a completely new, unfamiliar environment (in a more permanent sense, as in switching schools or coming to college - not, like, at a party), I do a lot of watching and waiting to jump in and reveal my personality - so that I can gauge just how to act to be the most liked. In 8th grade, it took me about half the year to really warm up and feel like I was starting to have friends. Even with that, J, K and I didn't get close until the beginning of our sophomore year of high school.

Nevertheless, that was a friendship worth waiting for. The two of them started getting close as K and I were getting close (weirdly, I think that J and I are actually the closest right now), but we didn't all really connect until later. It was actually kind of weird, because we were all going out in big groups at that point - you know, invite 8 of your friends to see a movie and have dinner, etc. We thought we were really cool in high school, haha. One time, though, it ended up just being the three of us - probably by accident, since we tried to invite a bunch of people to our weekend activities. We had a fantastic time together - I don't know, we just really connected. We'd been spending more and more time together in school, but it was the first time that I realized how compatible we were for friendship. At the end of the night, as we were walking out, I looked at them and said "We should do the more often..." they enthusiastically agreed, and I added "Like, just the three of us. I really, uh, just like being with you two." More enthusiasm was added, and I think that this might have just been the absolute moment that we became a friend group of three. Throughout the next two years, we hung around together a lot - and we only got closer as time went on. My German teacher started calling us "the dreieck" (the triangle) and because we thought it was hilarious, we sometimes use it to refer to ourselves. I never thought I'd be one of those pretentious assholes that names their friend group... but we don't take it seriously, I promise and also maybe I just have to eat my own words on that one.

I'm going to end this now, because it has already gotten long and I have much more to say. I think we'll leave "College Friendships" for a "Part II."