_Kurtis Dunlap is a fifth-year senior at MU. He is an English major. He writes about student life as an opinion columnist for The Maneater._
Take a moment to think back to when you were in high school. Specifically, look at the friendships you had. The ones where you saw each other every day, played on the same sports teams, gossiped about boys or played video games with into the early morning hours. These are the friends you thought would be your BFFs.
You will slowly drift away from these friends, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
When you sign all your friends’ yearbooks right before graduating high school, there is almost a guarantee you wrote some variation of “keep in touch.” For the first couple weeks of college you might send a text here or there, but over time, “keeping in touch” will consist of Facebook likes or retweeting something on Twitter. The friends you once thought you were going to conquer the world with are now reduced to a click of the mouse.
Going into college with an open mind is easily one of the most beneficial things you can do. I am from a small town outside Buffalo, New York. I came to MU not knowing anyone.
A lot of freshmen come to MU and know at least one person on campus. Some even come with friends from high school. However, allowing those friendships to be the only ones you make may potentially rob you of meeting people who could turn into lifelong friends.
If you hang out with the same people who have the same interests and the same background as you, you are never going to grow into the best person you can be. I am a firm believer that we are all products of our environment, and if you continue to be around the same people from freshman year in high school to junior or senior year in college, you’re never going to grow.
Although I am from a different state and from a school that had 68 kids in my graduating class, there is one person I graduated with who transferred to MU. For the last year and half we were good friends. I started to question why I was such good friends with him. We didn’t really have anything in common, our majors are nothing alike and our interests outside school were opposites. I came to realize it was only because we were expected to be friends because we went to high school together. We have both changed drastically since then, and I think we both have known it but have been afraid to admit it.
He’s moved on to friends who share the same interests, and so have I. I don’t have any ill will towards him; I think over time our values and morals shifted.
This situation happens all the time in college. You come into school with the best of friends, and over time, you grow apart.
But don’t feel bad or regret anything; being able to branch out and meet people who truly value your friendship are the friends who will last a lifetime. Don’t be upset that an old friendship is over; be excited about the possibilities of creating new ones.
