My family moved towns several times when I was young, mostly due to my father's changing jobs. By the time we finally settled down to the place we live now, I was quiet and withdrawn and accustomed to friendships with short shelf lives. I realized at age six that when you know you're only going to live in a place for one year, you don't commit yourself to strong friendships.
From second grade on, I was in the same elementary school, but still each year I had to choose a new best friend based on whom was placed in my class. The options were pretty limited: I never wanted to be part of that group of meek Asian girls with their little Hello Kitty pencil bags and Japanese mechanical pencils; I didn't fit in with the loud, sporty crowd who'd been accumulating their “BFF” group photo albums since kindergarten; the remaining people had paired up long ago; and boys were awkward and out of the question.
Somehow in the first week of every year I ended up with a “best friend,” usually chosen because the two of us got along alright, and because neither of us wanted to be alone at lunch. The result? A lengthy list of former friends whom I hardly ever talk to anymore, even when we share a class. Sure, Claire and I were inseparable in fourth grade, but now in Physics we pretend we've never spoken before. That's probably because we didn't bother to keep in touch after that year. We both moved on to other friends, ones that we liked better. Not all my friendships were as forgettable as this one—some I think back on very fondly—but they all ended quietly and painlessly as we drifted apart.
I think everything comes down to the fact that I was so darn passive when I was young. I would put up with practically anything from my friends and was always the quieter one of the pair, following along while my friend came up with ideas for our make-believe fairy stories. I floated around and attached to different people, most of whom were similarly lonely, because I didn't know what to do on my own.
The saga finally ended when I arrived at middle school and integrated myself into the group of friends I have today. We've added on and lost a couple members over the years, but the ten of us have stayed together no matter what classes we end up with. We are all girls, and we have completely different interests and backgrounds—one is a hockey player, one a big math star, one a gymnast, one a cheerleader... not that these things define them, but in a way, they do shape who they are. I guess the main thing that ties us all together is that we care about school, and that we're all fairly pleasant people.
I don't know each of them as well as I would know a best friend, and I can't like each of them as much as I would a best friend, but I like how we are. I like our unspoken pact to be kind to each other and to avoid all the teenage drama. I like spending time with so many people who have different personalities and opinions; I can't imagine ever having just one best friend again.
For a while, though, I still felt like I was missing something in that group that should be present in a real friendship. That's where Sanjana comes in, my neighbor from down the street, whom I started spending time with two years ago. She's the only person I can have hours-long conversations with while walking her dog or “working on math" late at night on the phone, and she's the one I can tell practically anything to. She's the only person who I tell about my current crushes and the only one who knows about this blog. (Hi Sanjana :)).
Friendship can work without common interests, but isn't conversation really the meat of everything? I love the discussions I can have with Sanjana—about movies, TV, books, or music; about our dreams for the future; about serious stuff in the world; about boys and all the angst of being a teenager. The problem with belonging to my diverse group of friends is that I'm not usually interested in the same things as them; I can't talk about marching band or back handsprings. Don't get me wrong- I love them all to death. It's just that we don't have too much to talk about outside of school.
What I want most are friendships that will last. I look at my mother, who's still in contact with her best friend from when she was thirteen, and I worry that I'm going to drift out of all the friendships I've made here as soon as I move on to the next phase of my life. Choosing new friends will be better from now on, now that I'm more of a complete person, but I still want to keep in touch with these people who, unlike those elementary school friends, I've genuinely shared a lot of good times with.
This isn't really any kind of cohesive idea, and I'm sorry it's a tad long. But this is what I know so far about friendship. I'm still figuring out a few things myself.
Have a great weekend and DFTBA!
~Sofia
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