Relationships

We had a Convocation today about relationships. Not just boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, but friendships, roommateships, family ties, and how it can fall apart when you go to college. One thing that focused on is the disconnect that occurs when you leave your high school friends behind at home and leave for college. They understood you better than anyone at college does(at least at first), and you have that feeling of aloneness when there is no one you can talk to about the deep stuff going on in your life.

I have to say, I definitely felt this when I first came to college. My best friend ever, Samwise, was the one guy  could talk to about literally anything. We met in the 3rd grade and ever since we have just clicked. As the expression goes, we were "two peas in a pod". We never fought, we never had "falling outs," we just clicked. Then halfway through middle school he switched schools and it became much more difficult to retain our friendship, but we made it work. When you have a friend like that, you don't just let them go. But now that we're in college, we both just can never find the time to chat or hang out. And while I've made friends here that I can talk to about the deep stuff going on, I still can't talk to them about everything, that base child-like connection just isn't there. What I am trying to say is that I miss him.

It's critically important to retain friendships that you've had before college. Even if it may upset our new friends a little, you can't just forget your past, nor should you. Samwise is someone who was around as I grew up into the person I am now. We may not be able to talk much anymore, but when we do, that connection is still there. I feel like we can still talk to each other about anything, and if those of you reading this have a friend like that, DO NOT LET THEM GO. They are the kind of friend that is unreplaceable(if that's even a word).

The convocation also talked about roommate relationships, and how sometimes good friends don't make good roommates. I've learned this the hard way, unfortunately. Leroy Jenkins is a treasured friend, but now that he is also my roommate, I don't get a break from him. As I mentioned quite extensively in one of my previous posts, I need alone-time, and he doesn't like to give me that. He's probably not intentionally doing it, but he is just always around, which forces me to try and "escape" from him, which is a terrible thing to try to do. It's not fair to him. At the same time, good roommates don't always make good friends either. Like my roommate last year. We did pretty well as roommates, but we didn't click as friends. We could respect each other (which is very important for roommates), but we didn't have enough in common to be good friends.

And finally, the convocation talked about boy/girl relationships. At college you meet a lot of people from the opposite sex (especially here, with a 3-1 girl-boy ratio). These people come from all over the country, and come with a lot of different views concerning the opposite gender. Some girls are used to hanging out with a lot of guys, and guys can easily take that interest the wrong way (as I have seen time and again). It just gets messy, as one of the guys said.
In high school, I would always hear girls say things like "Guys just don't get hints." Well, when you've got different messages coming from all over the spectrum, like girls who just want to be friends to girls who are interested, it becomes necessary to ignore hints, because honestly you just can't tell. One very good piece of advice they gave was to avoid a relationship freshmen year. Heck yes. Because if that relationship doesn;t work out, you've both made the same friends (typically), and a break-up means a loss of more than just a boyfriend/girlfriend. I don't really have anything more to say about this(due to a lack of personal experience in my college years, and due to an unwillingness to share anything deeper than that at this time), so I guess that's all for now.

As for family relationships, keep in touch with your family. Your parents have known you literally your entire life, longer than you even remember. They love you and care about you, and just because you are more independent now doesn't mean you shouldn't check in with them and let them you're all right. And your siblings still love you and care about you, and it would not be fair to them to leave them "out in the cold" and do your own thing. Especially if you're the oldest in the family. Your younger siblings rely on you, and you should be there for support.