You've Got A Friend In...

It's still Monday until you go to sleep, am I right?

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You know what the best part about your four (or more) years of college is? Orientation. Either some week in the summer or the week before classes start, everyone comes to the campus and basically hangs out. Learns the layout of the campus. Maybe a sexual assault or a drugs and alcohol talk thrown in for good measure. But the most important part of orientation, is that you (ideally) come out of it with a group of friends. And even if they were friendships of convenience, at least you have people to eat with at meal times for the first few weeks before you meet the kids on your floor and the kids in your classes and the kids in all the billions of clubs you sign up for at your first activities fair.

Because, you know what I've found? It takes friends to make friends.

It's kind of like that Catch-22 of getting a job or getting a credit card (you can't get hired without experience, you can't get a credit card without having good credit). If you do not have any friends, it is really hard to make friends. The majority of my friends I met through other friends. Who knows how that initial friend of mine met this person, probably through a class or a club or most likely, another friend. But at some point they invited this friend to meet me, and we hit it off. I have some really good friends that I met on my own, that I either had class with or worked with or was in a club with or lived across the hall from, but a lot of my best friends I was introduced to. Either I had a friend who dated this person or lived with this person, or I had a friend throw a party that this person was also invited to. I needed friends to make more friends.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have no friends. :) Alright, alright, not true. But much closer to being true than it has ever been in my entire life. Your introduction to the real life is not the same as that first night of college. When I moved in, my neighbors and I did not stay up all night telling each other our life stories. My neighbors barely know or care that I exist. If I go out to a restaurant, I can't take comfort in the knowledge that the kid sitting by himself in the corner is new too and really wants someone to sit with him. Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over real well.

But I have hope. I have a handful (less than a handful) of friends living in the same city as me, and we are all in the same boat. But we also know that once one of us makes a friend who actually has ties to the city, the entire city will open up to us. We'll meet their friends who will introduce us to their friends who will introduce us to their friends just by being at the same bars or the same clubs or the same gatherings, and sooner or later, we will each find our little niche of people to become our new support group.

We just have to make that first friend. That's all it takes.

So how do we meet this first friend? There's work, but everyone is so busy, I can't just go around asking the people who look my age if they wanna hang. There's bars, but unless there is a good pool table or something on TV, it would be awkward just sitting at the bar trying to figure out which group of friends might talk to me (plus as a five-foot girl who looks about sixteen years old, this is not the safest choice). There's also volunteer groups and churches and local sports and stuff, which is probably the route I will take. At least you are there for a reason. The ice will already be broken because you have something to talk about. I spent the weekend pouring over different newsletters that different organizations in the city put out, talking about different events and stuff that I intend to go to.

But you know what it really takes to make a new friend? Courage. Courage and confidence. The courage to go up to a complete stranger and say "Hey. I'm new around here. How's it going?" And the confidence in knowing that you are completely awesome, and this person would be lucky to have a friend in you.

So for now, I'm just waiting for that magical, elusive first friend. After that, it will be a breeze.