Question on College and Friendships

[Lorick]

So, I just entered college, and am facing a strange feeling.

I had many shallower friendships, and this summer would go to bonfires and think "Wow, I'm never going to see this person after tonight," which was strangely more liberating than depressing. However, I have three very strong and deep friendships, and am starting to wonder if we'll start drifting apart as well. So far, even though we all go to separate colleges, we've met up and hung out. As the year winds on, though, I wonder if this will become less practical, especially for the two who are going pretty far away.

I'm wondering if anyone here has faced this, or been able to maintain close friendships with high school friends in a different college.

[rs2excelsior]

I'm about to go into my Junior year of college, and yeah, this happens. I still see some of my friends from high school, but there was one group in particular that stuck together. We got together to hang out a lot over that first summer right after high school, and pretty often the next year. This past summer, though, not as much, partially because about half the group spent the majority of the summer somewhere else. But yeah, spending that much time apart generally does mean you drift apart some.

[Mx.Silver]

So, I just entered college, and am facing a strange feeling.

I had many shallower friendships, and this summer would go to bonfires and think "Wow, I'm never going to see this person after tonight," which was strangely more liberating than depressing. However, I have three very strong and deep friendships, and am starting to wonder if we'll start drifting apart as well. So far, even though we all go to separate colleges, we've met up and hung out. As the year winds on, though, I wonder if this will become less practical, especially for the two who are going pretty far away.

I'm wondering if anyone here has faced this, or been able to maintain close friendships with high school friends in a different college.

In the case of maintaining friendships, the important thing is to stay in contact. Long distance does require some effort, but it can work. The upside of living in the future is that there are plenty of ways to facilitate this. Email, phones, text, social media, etc. are all at your disposal. If you can keep up a fairly regular amount of contact, (and not that this will mean you need to take the initiative in making some of this contact) friendships can survive despite geographical distance. Just note that you will probably not have quite the same relationship you did when you were geographically close.
(I say this as someone who hasn't been within 100km of one of my closer friends in the last six years.)


Now, having said that, some friendships will drift apart at some point. While this isn't fun, it is normal. Most things in life are temporary, after all.

[valadil]

I'm 31. I still have friends from middle school. And I don't mean Facebook friends, I mean still hanging out on a weekly basis friends. It takes effort but it can be done.

What I found with college friends was that a lot of friendships were circumstantial. Going to college is kind of like a big social reset button. It removes the established cliques and puts everyone on the same page. When I was a freshman, it was really easy to bond with people. We were going through the same set of circumstances and automatically had a lot in common by virtue of being freshmen.

But I also found that who I hung out with varied from semester to semester. I always kept touch with the same pool of friends, but I could hang out with some people every day for a semester and then as soon as the next semester came and our schedules were different we wouldn't see each other.

I found this frustrating until I accepted it. It's like getting mad at the tide. College friendships will come in cycles. Enjoy who you've got around you at the time and be prepared to put some serious effort into maintaining the friendships you want to be long term.

[Aedilred]

I have about three or four good friends remaining from school and perhaps five or six more who I see infrequently, usually through those friends, but still get on with. I think I'm relatively unusual among my peers who went to university in retaining that many.

And I don't really regret that. There are perhaps one or two people from school who I wouldn't mind being in better contact with than I am, but very few people from school I've lost contact with that I actually regret. What's more, it's enough effort now I'm in the real world just seeing my current friends as often as I'd like; I just don't have the time or (physical/emotional) energy to retain more good friends than I currently have. The current group have reached that status through a kind of Darwinian natural selection, I guess, and that group may well continue to evolve. Most of my really close friends these days I met at university (and of my schoolfriends in that group, one of them was at uni with me). I think that's just the way of things: the environment, and your own emotional and intellectual condition at that age, is just much better suited to creating more meaningful and lasting friendships.

You're also free to pick and choose your friends in a way I never really felt I was at school: my "friends" there were basically just the people who weren't too cool to talk to me. It wasn't until I got to uni and started meeting people more on my own terms, in an environment where it was much easier just to walk away (most of the time) that I realised many of my "friends" from school weren't really friends in any meaningful sense at all, just people with whom we'd come to a mutual understanding of tolerance.

So, to answer your question, it's probable, probably almost certain, that you'll lose many, of your school friendships. But I don't think that's anything to be too concerned about, either.

[Dienekes]

So, I just entered college, and am facing a strange feeling.

I had many shallower friendships, and this summer would go to bonfires and think "Wow, I'm never going to see this person after tonight," which was strangely more liberating than depressing. However, I have three very strong and deep friendships, and am starting to wonder if we'll start drifting apart as well. So far, even though we all go to separate colleges, we've met up and hung out. As the year winds on, though, I wonder if this will become less practical, especially for the two who are going pretty far away.

I'm wondering if anyone here has faced this, or been able to maintain close friendships with high school friends in a different college.

I was never one for shallow friendships. I have usually maintained around 2-4 friends at any given time my entire life. And of those from high school, I'm not gonna lie of my 4 close friends who I thought of as brothers, I only have maintained contact with 2 of them in the years since I've graduated college. Part of this is undoubtedly my fault (I point blank refuse to join sites like Facebook and Myspace or whatever other thing there is out there that people use to keep in touch). But for the two I have kept contact with, it's difficult. My suggestion, take time out of the week or month or whatever to catch up, sending texts or emails or whatnot. Making plans to visit (generally for some cool activity or event) and keep them, and understand that there will be time when you lose touch for a bit, and try to regain contact when an opportunity arises. Also, if you're into this sort of thing, online games can be a good place to keep friendships going. For me it was Starcraft and then later, Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. We'd see each other online playing the game and as we start up a game we'd chat.

Hope some of that is helpful.

[SarahV]

In the internet age it's very difficult for two people to drift apart if they don't want to and are willing to put in some kind of minimal effort. I have kept only two friends that I knew before college (once I've known since I was 3, one I've known since I was 6), but that's because they are the only two I wanted to keep. We all live far apart and don't see each other often, but when we do, the friendship is still there. I'm quite close friends with people spread from Minnesota to Prague.

I just crossed paths with the friend I've known since I was 6 this week, we hadn't seen each other in years but through Facebook we realized that we were both going to be in Manhattan at the same time for about 18 hours, and we managed to sneak away from our obligations for a two-hour lunch. We've grown a little less close, but it's because we've both changed a lot in 30 years.

And that's why I haven't kept my other school friendships - I've changed a massive amount in the last 10-15 years (I'm 37). That might happen to you, too. You might change, your friends might change, you might not have the same connection you always did. And honestly, that's fine. It is often better to make new friends that you connect with as a more mature person, with more mature interests and ideas, than to keep the friends you connected with when you were still somewhat immature. It may work out that you all mature in the same direction, and that's great... but it's not something you have much control over. But in the end... if you and the other people still want to be friends, you can be.