Like a lot of people, I have friends from different schools. All for different reasons of course, including sports, theater, band, etc. The amazing thing about these friendships is your bond is usually stronger than other friendships. Due to the fact that you have to endure things together when maybe the only way you can communicate is through the phone. I have always had friendships from both at West and out of West, and they’re both great obviously. I’m just talking about the good things about having a friend with distance right now.
With friends from different schools, it seems as if you have double the things to talk about. For example, when my friend Brooklyn and I talk about what happened at lunch on Tuesday, we’re going to have two different stories and two different interactions. We go to every football, basketball, soccer game together and we always have fun and it’s always something new happening to them. Since schools have different events like sports events, plays, parades etc. it’s as if you can experience the moment twice but with small differences. Going to these places with them you get introduced to different people. Brooklyn has introduced me to a ton of new people from City and I do the same for her.
I understand that some people have a hard time keeping a friendship that you don’t see that much but coming from me it truly isn’t hard to keep these friendships exciting. During weekends Brooklyn and I face time all the time, meet up downtown, play soccer, watch movies, go to eat etc. Another downside to these friendships is that you usually live further away from them. It’s hard not being a three minute drive away from my soccer friends in Marion plus we don’t see each other at school and during the spring for high school season. Scheduling is another tough obstacle with this kind of thing because school events are at different times/days, sports are the same too.
Since most of my outside of school friends are from Marion because of soccer during the Fall I saw them 5 days out of the week every week for about 3-4 months. Now that we’re all in high school season it’s weird not having to see them for 3 months since we used to spend every burning second. Don’t get me wrong I’m more of an in person talking kind of person so i have a harder time texting people but every now and then I send them a text to see how they’re doing. Doing this keeps our bond good and not starting over once we start seeing each other again.
I decided to survey 21 students in my FOJ class. What you can see on the bar graph is that a majority of them do have friends from different schools. The main reason I wrote about this topic is to see if other people have the same challenges as me with friends at different schools. I asked Kavya Bhatt 27’ “What are some pproblems you face day to day with a different school friendship?”
This is what Kavya had to say on it. “It’s hard not to see them everyday, she also is very busy and it’s hard to talk to them.”
After writing this I learned that my friendships inside and outside of school look very different. I wrote this to assure people that long distance friendships aren’t scary but fun and so something to not hide from. This article made me look into all my friendships and see what makes them as strong as they are and it gave me a new perspective on them.
