if you are self confident, honest, and strong-willed good luck making a lot of girl friends in high school. especially in middle school GOD that shit was torturous!! all my closest friends were people i had met at theater and sleep-away camp OR they were literally adults. a lot of my best friends, even to this day, are older than me. it's how i've been my entire life.
a lot of the relationships i made with girls in high school were extremely surface level. in fact a lot of my closest girlfriends from high school are older than me. they're all really mature. they're all really secure in who they are. okay okay i know i sound like i'm just bragging about how incredibly mature and confident i am. TRUST me... for the longest time i felt like literal shit because i couldn't make close friends in school at that age. i used to think a huge part of it was where i lived. i remember days in the car coming home from school where i'd just yell at my parents, "I WISH WE NEVER LIVED HERE!!"
i was born in south orange, new jersey. the people there were all super liberal, super into the arts, and the school districts were very diverse. it was the complete antithesis to where i moved– conservative, sporty, and hella white. so yeah, finding kids that i would make connections with was extremely difficult. i met my close childhood friends by being a part of performing arts summer camps and programs like School of Rock or work where i could actually meet kids that had similar interests and opinions.
but in retrospect, going to a school where the majority of kids are different than you was good because it made me appreciate Oberlin a lot more. it made me learn how to stand up for myself. it helped me become the person i am today. i met and became friends with people that i thought were completely differently than me. i was a lot less judgemental.
the girl i'm in the picture with is my good friend lauren. lauren and i met in spanish class my sophomore year of high school. lauren is the funniest, most loving and kind person i've ever met. i honestly never thought i would meet someone as chill as she was during my time in school and especially never thought i would become friends with a girl who looooved to party. i've always been the type to just have a chill shindig with a j and some music. one of my favorite memories was when lauren had a party that was themed "playboy mansion" and i literally pulled up in overalls and berks. i had a shaved head at the time. everyone else was in sexy little bunny outfits. someone even came up to me like "yo the girl with the buzzcut is here!!" he was probably sloshed but that was how he referred to me lmfao. i had so much fun that night and spent the night at her place afterwards.
lauren just loved me for me and i loved her for her. she moved down to florida during college and i was able to actually meet up with her in miami beach. we had a BLAST. to this day we still talk. she's one of the best and chillest people i know.
if i'd gone to a super liberal hipster ass high school i maybe would have been really jaded about becoming friends with someone like lauren... a "normie" as my Oberlin friends would say lmfao. lauren is the least normie person i know. she's goofy, quirky, hilarious, and talented beyond belief. i always hated when people used that term because there are so many people who don't look like normies that are so incredibly cringe.
i also have other incredible girl friends that i continue to stay in touch with from high school. my friends fiona and missy are the older sisters i never had (together fiona is a scorpio, missy is an aries, and i'm a virgo... we truly are one troubled trio).
my friend grace literally got me to join the rugby team my junior year... if that wasn't an indicator that i was gay asf i don't really know what is. her family is conservative and she knows i'm veryyyy liberal but i could give less of a crap. she is an incredible person and friend so why would i care about something so trivial. i have other girl friends i can bitch to about politics. i can bitch to grace about everything else.
abbie is one of the kindest most loving people i've ever known. i had some very strong opinions about a friend she had in high school but why would i ever care about getting in the way of that when she is an amazing friend. btw they're not close anymore and we still are so who is really winning tho. see??? all you gotta do is just not give a fuck and nature will run its course ladies...
i'm grateful for all the incredible women i've maintained friendships with in high school but damn was it a wild ride.
for every good person i've maintained a friendship with i've probably lost a ton more. growing up i was so incredibly down on myself. i wanted to live somewhere else. i wanted to make friends. so badly in fact that i auditioned for a performing arts school in another state so it could be an option. i was so depressed putting my absolute all into people that tore me down. i lost friends over the absolute PETTIEST reasons. i forgave and forgave because it was either be friends with shitty people in school or have very few friends at all. i went to prom my junior and senior year with my brother because i didn't have a friend group to go with. it wasn't until senior year that i honestly couldn't have given two flying fucks about having tons of girl friends and just hung out with abbie (the only close girlfriend in my grade) and my twin brother the majority of the time lmao. i was over the surface level friendships.
it wasn't until i went to Oberlin where i really started to open up again, pretty much because i had to. it was great having a fresh start and at a place where people actually supported similar things that i did and had similar interests. if anything it was really funny when i went to my first Oberlin party because literally it looked like there was 100 evas walking around.
that's how i describe Oberlin to my girl friends that go to really big schools with frats and stuff... 100 evas walking around.
the close girl friends i have made at Oberlin are women that i can see being friends with forever. i do not suggest trying this yourself but i literally crashed my friend Elia's car and she literally was like
"bruh do not worry it's seriously nbd. we will fix it. are you okay??"
to this day i get like massive panic attacks when i do shitty things to a friend. i feel this insane massive guilt because i have lost SO many friendships over the most RIDICULOUS things ever. i also do not recommend doing this but i threw up red wine all over my friend Alex's rug and i was like freaking out. i apologized so much. i felt so bad. i offered to buy her a new rug and shit. she literally was like "dude, shit happens." i will forever smoke that b out because i really done did that but STILL.
of course i've lost friendships in college, that's just the name of the game as is with high school. but it was a lot easier to make close and meaningful connections with women at Oberlin than i have in all my years of public school in pennsylvania.
i think it's a combination of things. obviously when you become friends with good people it doesn't matter and the girls i've stayed in contact with from high school are the exact same. my friend missy who is literally more like a sister to me had a month long falling out with me and we both came out of it honestly stronger in my opinion. i love her no matter what and i would never sacrifice a friendship over some dumb bs. that's just what you do when you love people.
the other thing is that i think it has a lot to do with insecurity. in high school, tons of girls compare themselves to their peers. all the biggest falling outs i've had have usually been with girls with incredibly low self confidence. a lot of girls are like that in high school and as i have discussed with friends of mine who went to super liberal or alternative schools, that really never changes depending on where you go. usually once you've gotten to college and especially when you become a junior or senior, you learn so much about yourself and grow understanding of who you are and what you want from friends.
i don't regret going to high school at a large sporty, conservative, white public school. i had to seek those friends out in other places besides school and i did. i still maintain friendships with a handful of girls from high school who i remain close to. i learned a lot about myself in those years. i learned a lot about who i was and what i needed. i became friends with incredible women in college. and i learned that i am NOT inept at making good girl friends in life.
it just took me some more time.
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