Did you meet your best friend in high school?

Please take a minute here and think of how you both met. What is your equation now?

Diya (justread_justdream) suggested this topic two weeks back. I wanted to write it at that time but procrastinated in the hopes that I can write 500 words without going down my own memory lane. Since that seems to be impossible, let me start with just that.

The worst part of my school life was the high school phase. To be precise, I am talking about the Class 8, 9 & 10. I saw people around change, new faces made way, old friends left for another school and there I was thinking what exactly was happening around me.

When Diya asked me for this topic, I decided to research. Was it just me or does it happen with everyone?

Lindsay Holmes wrote an article for Huffington Post on how high school friendships affect our mental health. In the article, she compares tight-knit friendships with being the popular kid on the block. Those in the small group of friends showed fewer symptoms of psychological issues like depression, being socially unaccepted and low sense of self-worth.

That was talking about the effects that are evident in the later future in terms of mental health. It covers a very narrow scope. Then, I chanced on another article by Alice Gomstyn on Babble on why mid-school friendships don't last. While I found most of the article irrelevant, what interested me was the conflict creating differences and a friendship doesn't last where there are differences.

To you, it may sound a weak reason. However, going back to the two groups in Holmes's article, if one friend wants close friendship while the other wants to be popular, it leads to a difference in opinions a.k.a. conflict. As children, we used to fight and by the end of the day, we would get up, dust off our dress and walk away together, chatting like nothing happened. However, in teenage years, a new concept called Ego takes shape. "I don't want to be the first to talk. I will look like a loser." You don't want to look like a loser. You don't want to look like a nerd. You want to be the cool kid. You want to be famous. Don't want to be this. Want to be that.

At that age, the ego clouds our sensibility that wanting to be someone is not being that someone. You don't want to be the first to talk, so you don't talk to your friend after the fight. And, no, this is not individual. This spreads in groups. She isn't talking to me. So I will not talk to her friend as well. He is playing in the other team so I will not be friends with him anymore. This leads to groups of people acting similarly with no interaction with the next group. When this mentality carries forward, it is impossible you will have the same group everywhere else. Your identity is lost and you are left acting.

On the other side of the hill, when you make friends with someone for the person they are, you don't need to filter your words. You can tease them, they tease you back and in the next moment you can laugh it off. You share your secrets and keep their secrets from the rest of the world. With time, you have a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and a hand to hold in the trying times later in life.

I wish someone told me this when I was in my high school. The friends I made when I pretended to be someone are no longer in contact. I have no idea what they are going through. But the friends I met in the later stages when I had the mind to be myself, are no less than a family. I only have two close friends today whom I can call up in the middle of the night. They would hurl curses for the first 30 seconds and then ask me what went wrong that I was calling at such odd hour.

There are more in the extended circle whom I mostly contact through social media for holidays and festivals, congratulating for some milestone events and meeting them whenever possible. The irony is they are mostly from my kindergarten years. Growing up hasn't affected our friendships, if it did, it only strengthened them. We still play those silly games when we meet, talk of the good old days and make some new memories to look back on. Nonetheless, they too are friends before whom I don't have to pretend.

If you are in high school and reading this, I hope it gives you a perspective on what you can expect in future. If your high school experience has been, unlike mine, more roses than thorns, then please share in the comments below.

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References:
1. Lindsay Holmes https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/best-friends-adult-happiness_us_599d8c60e4b0a296083b682e

2. Alice Gomstyn https://www.babble.com/parenting/why-your-kids-middle-school-friendships-wont-last/

Photo credit: tables and chairs https://pixabay.com/photo-2787754/