CHISTYAKOV: On Friendships

I have heard many times that the people you meet in college will be your friends for life.

When I was 17, just beginning to apply to colleges, this statement seemed ridiculous. I had my friends for life right at my high school. I would hang out with them every day at school, and then I would see them on the weekends. I could not fathom ever ending this pattern. To my disappointment, many of my closest friends ended up picking schools very far from me, even some as far away as Israel.

The reality for a number of college students is that their close friends will not end up at the same college as them, let alone in the same city. College is all about branching out and experiencing new things, and inevitably this includes making a new group of friends.

It starts to become difficult when your two social groups — the friends you have back at home and the friends you’ve made at college — conflict with one other. When you’re talking to a group of new people and a friend from home suddenly calls, do you answer? Do you keep socializing and working on the relationships you have at college? What happens when your high school friends are having a difficult time in college? Do you let them cling to you and hold you back from making friends? Do you completely stay out of contact with your old friends with the hope that you will make even better friends at college?

Relationships are hard to develop and even harder to keep. Your friends from high school have stuck with you — from tests, to AP classes, to homecoming, to after prom and graduation. No one should simply dismiss the people he or she spent time with in high school. Although you might meet cooler people in college, they won’t know you as well as your old friends know you.

For those times when you get sad or homesick, calling on your high school friends will definitely make you feel better. And when your high school friends call or text you asking for some comforting words, it’s best to do whatever you can to make them feel better. Although there may be many miles between you and your closest friends, that’s no reason to push them away or ignore the years of friendship you shared with them.

But long distance friendships do have their limits. It’s very important to meet new people while in college, and it’s important to know that your old friends are trying to do the same. Calling them too frequently will not only keep you from making new friends, it will make you seem annoying. Being clingy isn’t good for any friendship, really, but especially long distance ones.

The most important lesson I have learned about friendships in college is that if you don’t open up about yourself, no one will truly know who you are. There are things that many of us tend to hide from people that we meet in order to make ourselves seem like better, cooler people, but these things can’t be hidden from the people we live with. When I feel homesick or upset, instead of relying on one of my friends back in California, I make sure to find someone on my floor to talk to. Not only does this foster relationships on the floor, but it also helps me communicate my feelings and eventually find a realistic solution. When I call my friends at home, the conversation usually ends with them saying, “Just come back home! Come visit next weekend!” Visiting Los Angeles for a weekend is not a realistic solution to the problems I am facing in Boston.

Sometimes, relying on my friends back home is not the best problem solving mechanism. The best solution available for myself and for other freshmen is clear: find your solid group of friends right here in Boston. This will not only help you root yourself in Boston University, but it will also provide you with a support group for the next four years.