Friends of Friends

I ran into [Quiet Raver] the other day. She was tabling a vegan bake sale at Coffman when I was there with [Princess Leia Vampire] to exchange comics. It was more than a little bit awkward because, while we both go to the U, I've only seen her one other time since we started college. Part of me thinks that that's a shame, because we used to be somewhat close, and she was the first friend I made when we started high school. But, the truth is, I haven't stayed in touch with anyone from high school, nor do I particularly care to.

I didn't dislike high school. Despite the required religion classes and semi-regular mass, it was a good environment for me, and I think I got a lot out of it, both socially and academically. All that said, I didn't really have friends in high school. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't socially isolated or anything. I had people I ate lunch with, and who I hung out with before school, and who I talked to in class, etc. It was just that all of those relationships ended as soon as we weren't at school. I would hang out with them during the school day, and then after school and on weekends and during breaks they would hang out together and I was never invited.

I was only ever invited when it was a big group thing, like a birthday party or something like that, but, in a way, that only made it worse. It wasn't like they just didn't think to ask me to do stuff with them, they just didn't want to. They were never mean, and it wasn't like they didn't want me around, but I wasn't truly part of the group.

XKCD

The thing is, I can't just blame them, because it was probably, at least partially, my fault. They probably never knew how hard it was for me to listen to their inside jokes that I wasn't privy to, or how much it would have meant to me if they would have included me, but I wasn't going to tell them. Maybe if I had been more forward about what I wanted with them, I could have been more included, or at least realized earlier that I was wasting my time.

For a long time it didn't really bother me; I was okay with the way things were, because while things weren't great, they were good enough, which was all I really cared about. It didn't start to really bother me until senior year, when I finally realized what I was missing, but by then it was too late to really change things or get new friends.

I was bitter about it for a while, especially when I'd see pictures on Facebook of their escapades, and I was angry, both at them and at myself. But then, this summer I went to an end of the summer party at [Only Likes Asians]'s, and I saw them again, along with a bunch of other people. And while I talked to them for a while, which was super awkward because they were the same as ever, I spent a lot more time talking to other people from high school, who I was never super close to. I realized that [Operant Conditioning] and [Daphnis] and [Techie At Heart] et al. will probably be best friends for a long time and stay in touch for a while, and I don't have a place in that, but I also realized that I was okay with that.

Maybe it's because I finally realized that we were never very good friends to begin with, and maybe it's because I realized that we didn't really have much in common to begin with, but I think it was mostly because I didn't need to be friends with them anymore because I have a close group of friends now, that I'm actually friends with. In a lot of ways, this is the first time in my life that I've felt completely part of a group, rather than on the periphery, and it's made me realize both what I missed in high school, but also that I'm fine with that. Like I said, there was a lot of high school that I enjoyed, and a lot of things that I wouldn't change, it's just that since I started college, I've realized what it could have been, what I could have made it, but that's hindsight I guess...