Late Night Lesson

Some people say college is supposed to be the best time of your life. It's when you have amazing experiences, you live on your own, you travel, you know what it's like to truly be poor, and you meet the people that you'll be friends with for the rest of your life.

Now I agree with most of those things, but I don't necessarily agree with meeting my best friends in college. I have met some great people in high school that are still my best friends despite distance, not talking every day, and small arguments. I have also met some wonderful people in college who I know I'll be friends with forever. 

However, sometimes there are people you meet who you instantly like. Usually you become friends with people because you find a bit of yourself in them; you two share common interests. This is natural for people and we do this without even realizing it. I'm the type of person who has never had a large group of friends in high school, or even now. I like a small, close group of friends maybe 10 or 12.

There have been a few people at Suffolk that I've had a hard time maintaining a friendship with for various reasons. I value the people in my life greatly, because I know we'll learn from each other and we'll share some amazing memories. But people are only human right? People make mistakes; talk to people they shouldn't, mention something they shouldn't, and suddenly the "friends" you've spent so much time with have abandoned you. 

Since Suffolk is such a small community of students, basically everyone you meet is going to someone know someone else you know; it's kinda cool but sometimes it's not. It's cool because you both know the same person so you feel comfortable with each other and it breaks the ice, but it's also bad because if a friendship goes wrong on either end, you inevitably find yourself in the middle of an uncomfortable situation.

Recently I was in that exact situation. I was friends with two people who knew each other really well. One person I rather abruptly stopped talking to for whatever reason, and the other I was still friends with. On almost a daily basis I was confronted with issues about what was okay to say in front of the other, and for the most part I did fine. Only twice did I really mess up and the person I was friends with pulled away from me.

I value this person greatly. They have a great sense of humor and a very upbeat personality. We get along really well. But as I said, I'm only human and I opened my mouth one too many times. I just don't know what it's going to take for this person to be my friend again. I thought we always were; we would go out to dinner and we used to spend a lot of time together but not so much anymore.

The late night lesson here is no matter what you do and who you try to please, it'll never be enough because you'll always end up hurting the wrong person (in my case). I can't do anything to hurt the one who suddenly stopped talking to me because we don't talk and they don't care, but I constantly find I'm hurting the person that really matters to me, and that stinks. Maybe we'll completely stop being friends, but I hope not. I'm really a nice person and I don't intentionally hurt people...it's not in my personality description.

I really think I have a black cloud following me lately. Nothing is working out right or as I would like. Ughh is this just a bad dream? I don't think it is, and in that case...welcome to college life.