You can’t go a day without seeing them, you get dinner every night together, you text constantly and then go your separate ways and don’t think too much of it.
No, this is not some half-assed “with the times” metaphor for life and love, I’m just referring to college friends.
Nearly everyone comes to college with the intention of making close friends and many succeed, but does anyone really find life-long friends? Is there such a thing?
Personally, the image that comes to mind when I think about long-lasting friendship is usually one that involves constant upkeep, not the stop-and-start kind.
By stop-and-start I am referring to when you go home from school, for example, and then stop talking to your friends from college, but resume the friendships upon return.
Of course you are still friends even if you’re not in constant communication, but the fact that your friendship has a clear geographical basis is not a good starting point for a long-lasting relationship (unless said friendship is with a pond, road or tree).
Take my experience with Tamagotchi pets for example — and possibly real pets, lest PETA is reading. I would stop caring for them and start again, but in the end those relationships were ephemeral, because of the wear and tear.
I may have considered them all pals, but the truth was: not only were they not real, but due to my negligence, they were also dead.
As with fake pets — and to the best of my knowledge, real pets — you have to feed your friendships to keep them alive.
No, not with food, unless you got in a fight, in which case buy your friend some chocolate and she will love you again. (And also hate you. I mean really, are you trying to make her fat? You sadistic bitch.) A good way to feed a friendship is to change up the conversations you have. Give them something new to chew on.
I notice that everyone, myself included, seems to categorize friendships, and with that conversations. We designate certain attributes to our different friends and pursue those friends for different purposes. But what if we stop this selective process and let our thoughts and words wander?
Perhaps the ears they reach will be more attentive than we previously thought.
Now, I’m not saying to shake your lab partner until they give you a satisfactory response on your opinion of life and death, but allow yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Ask a friend that you mainly go Downtown and drink with to grab lunch with you. You may be surprised by what they have to say, or what they look like in the light of day.
Changing topics of conversation or meeting places are small things you can do to broaden the scope of your friendship. If you connect on more than one level at school, then it is more likely that you will pursue that connection when at home. This is because your friends are no longer serving as placeholders for your family and friends back home. They begin to take their own form.
When you erase the self-serving idea that everyone has a particular trait to offer you and begin to see them as multifaceted human beings, you can enjoy everyone more.
The difference between a friendship and a life-long friendship is appreciation and respect. And appreciating someone is the difference between being friends at a particular point in time and being friends for life.