The Importance Of Friends

I went on my Discovery camping trip this weekend and to my surprise it was pretty fun. For those of you that don’t know what Discovery is; it is an outdoor education class at Gordon College with ropes courses and rock climbing and all that jazz. I didn’t expect to have fun this weekend because for one I don’t really like camping and also I didn’t really know anyone in my group at all. That didn’t matter though. This weekend was so fun because I got to know all of the people in my class and found out that they are pretty awesome people. I guess you can say that I made some new friends, and you can never have enough friends.

By friends I don’t mean Facebook friends; honestly I don’t really associate with many of my Facebook friends, I just keep them as friends because they’re either amusing or I’m too lazy to go through all of them and delete some. Anyway, I’m talking about genuine friends. The friends that actually care about what’s going on in your life and do whatever they can to help you. You would think that these friends are hard to come by, but if you find the right people and open up to them it’s actually pretty easy to find them.

 

Growing up you don’t quickly find friends like this. Of course in elementary school you have the friends that you hang out with the most, but at a young age you aren’t capable of having these genuine friendships often. I probably had 5 different best friends throughout elementary school and they all went away for one reason or another. Once I hit junior high I had a good group of friends and had some pretty good friends that I could tell almost anything to. But of course junior high are the awkward years and most of those friendships also faded early in high school.

Then there was high school, where you found out who your true friends were and got rid of the people who were quick to stab you in the back. Honestly, for the first three years of high school I didn’t make many new friends that turned into complete genuine friends. That was probably because I was shy and couldn’t open up to people easily. I was in a shell, as I like to call it. I feared to be myself around new people because I didn’t know what they were going to think. I still had a group of friends and I had my best friends that I could open up to a little bit and tell them stuff, but I feared opening up to anyone else. You could probably attribute some of that fear to the fact that everyone was getting stabbed in the back by the people that they thought were their genuine friends.

Senior year was different though. I started dating my girlfriend senior year and definitely started to come out of my shell. I began to become friends with some of her friends and started to open up and be myself more. I spent a lot of time with them and became close with them and I was definitely happier than I had been in the past.

Looking back on senior year I realize that as it became later and later in the year I hung out with my own friends less and less. I definitely regret this. I missed out on a lot of good times that they had and sort of lost the idea of being my own person a little bit. Remembering the times that I did spend with my group of friends, it was amazing. It was great to experience all of the shenanigans that normal teenagers experience. And don’t get me wrong I had a bunch of fun with my girlfriend’s group of friends too, but I feel like I distanced myself from my own friends and that was something that I never wanted to do.

Now that I’m in college I have those friends that I hang out with sometimes, but again I’m finding it hard to find people that I can open up to. I guess that’s just because I’ve only been here for 2 and a half months. I’m sure as my college career progresses my friendships will grow and some of these people will be my friends for a really long time. I just miss those friends that I can go to with anything and not worry about them telling anyone or judging me. Those friends that helped me through anything and were always there.

Friends come from all different experiences and you can’t limit yourself when it comes to making friends. It’s good to have different friends and like I said you can’t really have enough of them. The friends I’m making at college are awesome and I’m sure I’ll still find more friends here. Honestly though, I can’t wait until summer when I can hang out with all of my high school friends. They’re always fun to be around. And of course I’m looking forward to Bro-giving that isn’t too far away. Shout out to Torin Reilly on that one. My high school friends are the type of friends that I’ll have for a long time after high school. Torin, this video is also for you.

 It’s good to have friends because it gives you a way to never have to go through anything alone. They get you away from the troubles of your life and give you a way to just go out and have some fun. If you’re lucky you can find those friends that can offer you someone to talk to when you’re going through something hard too. Remember, you’re never alone when you’ve got your friends.

-Eric Proulx