2008 Woodie Awards
College Life
Friends for now and friends forever
Aubrey Roff
Issue date: 4/8/04 Section: Features
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BY AUBREY ROFF
I have been thinking a lot about friends lately.
Not specifically my own personal friends, but friends in general. This barrage of thoughts was prompted by numerous conversations with my younger sister over spring break. She's a freshman in college, immersed in those wonderful two semesters where everything is new and it seems like absolutely everyone is your friend. After all these stories of parties, dorm life, classes, and trips to the cafeteria, I began to wonder how she kept track of all these so-called "friends."
The word "friend" gets thrown around all the time. We have girlfriends, boyfriends, good friends, best friends, kinda friends, sorta friends, ex-friends, current friends, and those drifting around outside of all these categories. We have friends on our buddy lists, contacts in our email address books, and numbers carefully stored in our cell phones. Everyone has so many people involved in their lives: How do you divide them into the different levels, intimacies, and categories of "friends?" How do you choose those who do not fit into that category at all? Really, how many different types of friends are there?
First, of course, there is the quintessential "best friend." Established in the throes of elementary school, when the hierarchy of friendship was essential to everyday survival, the "best friend" is obviously someone very important. Although, in college, we are not writing "blank + blank = best friends forever," in our notebooks, we still hold certain friends in higher regard than others (since most of us have more than one "best friend"). And although we assume we have grown up from our elementary school days, much of this hierarchy is very much the same. When we were kids, our "best" friends got invited to our sleepovers and picked for our dodge ball teams. Now, they hold our hands when we get tattoos, and take shots with us on our twenty-first birthdays.
Then there are your basic "friends." Whether they be your housemates, those girls from your lit class, or those guys you play intramural basketball with, you like them. You enjoy their company. You probably hang out with them on a regular basis. You will probably call them over the summer. But you most likely will not be asking them to be in your wedding party anytime soon.
I have been thinking a lot about friends lately.
Not specifically my own personal friends, but friends in general. This barrage of thoughts was prompted by numerous conversations with my younger sister over spring break. She's a freshman in college, immersed in those wonderful two semesters where everything is new and it seems like absolutely everyone is your friend. After all these stories of parties, dorm life, classes, and trips to the cafeteria, I began to wonder how she kept track of all these so-called "friends."
The word "friend" gets thrown around all the time. We have girlfriends, boyfriends, good friends, best friends, kinda friends, sorta friends, ex-friends, current friends, and those drifting around outside of all these categories. We have friends on our buddy lists, contacts in our email address books, and numbers carefully stored in our cell phones. Everyone has so many people involved in their lives: How do you divide them into the different levels, intimacies, and categories of "friends?" How do you choose those who do not fit into that category at all? Really, how many different types of friends are there?
First, of course, there is the quintessential "best friend." Established in the throes of elementary school, when the hierarchy of friendship was essential to everyday survival, the "best friend" is obviously someone very important. Although, in college, we are not writing "blank + blank = best friends forever," in our notebooks, we still hold certain friends in higher regard than others (since most of us have more than one "best friend"). And although we assume we have grown up from our elementary school days, much of this hierarchy is very much the same. When we were kids, our "best" friends got invited to our sleepovers and picked for our dodge ball teams. Now, they hold our hands when we get tattoos, and take shots with us on our twenty-first birthdays.
Then there are your basic "friends." Whether they be your housemates, those girls from your lit class, or those guys you play intramural basketball with, you like them. You enjoy their company. You probably hang out with them on a regular basis. You will probably call them over the summer. But you most likely will not be asking them to be in your wedding party anytime soon.