I’m two days away from officially beginning my junior year here at the University of Rochester. I can’t believe how different I feel from when I first came here in 2011. I feel as if I’ve been reborn. Though I’ve learned many great things about the world and about myself during my first two years here, I’ve also had some pretty challenging moments. Culture shock and a new found inferiority complex (because of my cultural background) hit me pretty hard last year. I’ve slowly worked towards becoming more confident in myself, and focusing on things that make me happy. With that in mind, I’ve also begun asking myself: what do I really really love?
Like with most people, my friends are a major component in my happiness. When looking at my patterns of friendship, I noticed something very interesting. Rather than having one concrete friend group with many friends in it, I have many friends from many different groups. Some of my friends don’t know each other, and some flat out dislike each other. I’ve never understood this phenomenon. Most people seem to be able to hold onto one single friend group and spend their time almost exclusively with this one group. I’m always struggling to meet with friends because a lot of them simply don’t talk to each other, or would simply not have a good reason to meet (since they tend to be so different, some polar-opposites of each other). This explains why I’ve never been able to label myself to a “scene” or attach myself to a certain social archetype (geek, theater kid, jock, etc).
From this, I realized that the reason all of my friends are so radically different from each other is because I grow bored of archetypes. I can’t hang around crowds. I can’t hang out exclusively with the art kids, or the jocks, or the philosophers. I need constant variety because the thing I most value in a friend is the ability to learn something from them. When I approach two people from the same “scene” or group, it feels as if I find no potential for friendship in the two people because they’re so similar. I can only be friends with one of them. And the same logic applies to the fact that I hold many friends from different friend groups. The thing I value the most in my friends is the ability for me to learn something from them, so I need a huge variety of personalities with different dreams, goals, life aspirations and thought processes that I can reflect on and apply to my own life.
I find this beautiful now that I think about it. I know it sounds a bit narcissistic, but I really love this about myself. I love the fact that I believe (and it shows through my actions/friendships) that learning together (via friendship) is beautiful. Being able to learn something from a person is a literal requirement for me to be able to be friends with someone. I’ve always held this standard without consciously realizing it. It must be the cultural anthropologist in me. Sometimes it seems as if I was truly just born to want to know it all.
With hopes and dreams intact,
–
Alexis