There are very few constants in life for the general population of this planet, but the one most important to us as human beings is having friends and family in our lives.
Now, some people may argue, ‘Well, not everyone gets along with their family.’ While, yes, sometimes our own blood-relative relationships don’t work out — to many, family is just a tier. Just like having a tier of best friends — you don’t necessarily have one best friend, but you have a few best friends you are equally close to.
At least, that’s how I look at it.
Given how important social interaction is in our daily lives and the value of having a group of people in our lives, why is finding them always so stressful? And sometimes that comes with the territory of finding a close-knit friend group.
Even typing the word friend group is giving me flashbacks.
Friend groups, to many, are hard to navigate and can be extremely difficult. I know I still think this, even being a part of a friend group myself.
Many people are unaware of the challenges that arise from simply having friends. And many people think that if you don’t have a friend group, you don’t have any friends at all — which is the furthest thing from the truth and applies to the majority of the world’s population.
Most people don’t have these huge friend groups.
And, can I tell you a little secret? Most of these people cannot stand the majority of their so-called ‘friends’ in the group. But shhhh, you didn’t hear that from me.
Some people reading this may think I have no idea what I am talking about or why a 20-year-old is giving out friend advice, but I, unfortunately (or fortunately, I haven’t decided which of the two yet), have had many different experiences with friends and friend groups.
I have switched schools three times, including the transition from high school to college, which is not a huge number of times switching schools, for some. I know people who have switched more than the average person, but regardless, switching schools can be a difficult experience, no matter how many times.
The biggest and hardest transition of my life thus far was moving towns before my freshman year of high school. I felt lost — I didn’t know a soul, and I very much did not want to have to make new friends after having the same friends since elementary school.
It was miserable at first: meeting new people, then having the pandemic hit, and then everyone was sent home. That threw a wrench in my plans to make new friends.
At that moment, I had thought my world was ending. I had a few friends, but never a close-knit group like the ones I had before. As I have gotten older, though, I have realized that this experience was a fundamental event that changed my life for the better.
I now have a different outlook on friendships and view friend groups very differently than I did before. I now appreciate this event I went through, because it truly made me a better person.
Friends in general are hard — why make it harder by having to mix with a whole group?
Some people reading this wholeheartedly disagree with me. And that is okay, but I want anyone reading this who doesn’t have a huge friend group to know that it is okay, your world is not going to end, and you are actually in the norm.
For me, I like to choose my friends wisely and surround myself with people I enjoy spending time with and who make me a better person every day.
Friend groups just don’t work for me, and that is okay. I am learning to come to terms with this realization and see it in a positive light.
I have so many friends from different walks of life. I believe that makes you a more well-rounded and interesting person. You have so many different perspectives being shared and discussed, and they aren’t coming from the same five people.
Don’t feel discouraged if you see people posting on social media all the time, either. From experience, those photos were curated to make it seem like we were having much more fun than they actually were. Don’t believe everything you see.
What inspired me to write this was an article I read a few weeks ago, “The Friend Group Fallacy” by Jenny Singer, published in The Atlantic. I recommend you all read it — it really opened my perspective on friend groups beyond what I had already been thinking.
This article wasn’t written to bash friend groups, but to simply make you think a little more about who you choose to surround yourself with. Life is too short to be ‘friends’ with people you don’t even like.
Choose yourself for once and choose your happiness over other people’s opinions, including this one.
Natalie Dripchak is a junior at UT this year studying advertising. She can be reached at [email protected].
Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
