Coming to college, I believed that having a big friend group meant I made the most out of my college experience. I mean, what makes more sense than having a bunch of friends to hang out with, do work with and, in my case, live alongside?
Well, I’m here to tell you that having a large friend group creates way more problems than solving them. Before you know it, you feel isolated, stressed and left with fewer friends than you started with.
My Freshman Year
At the beginning of my freshman year, after moving dorms from one of those nightmare roommate situations, I met a group of people I thought I would be connected to until I graduated.
Having met them in batches, I realized I was getting into so much more than I knew I could handle. As soon as I got introduced to the first two people, three more people showed up to introduce themselves.
I went from having no people I could call my close friends in high school to having almost 10 friends in a group that I would meet with every day during my freshman year.
We would meet up in a shared common room day after day, playing games, doing work, just talking in general, but after a while and a semester had passed, things started to get dicey.
The expectation of having to be around each other 24/7 became excruciating and honestly too demanding for someone as introverted as I was during my first year. Not being around them invoked gossip and exclusion.
When I missed out on things, I felt pressure and disapproval from the group, causing guilt to weigh on my conscience for things as simple as taking time to myself to be myself.
After knowing these friends for about four months, I discovered that they were not my type of people. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a relationship with people different from you, but my situation involved those with totally different values in life.
For example, they would drink and party way too much for me to keep up with, constantly talking about what they did at a party last weekend every time we would come together to talk. This furthered my feelings of being an outsider because I refused to conform to the normal “college life” of going out every weekend. I felt even more of a distance between people I called friends.
Learning What’s Best For You
Realizing that the way they treated me as a friend and the things they would say behind closed doors as well as to my face resulted in a long process of self-discovery within myself.
Questions arose, like “Should I stick with a big friend group like this just because of the feeling of having someone next to me?” and “Stick with these people because it just felt good to have all these “friends” when I previously came from none at all?”
You can say there’s power in numbers, but the real power comes from a stable foundation. The energy you pour into it, the way you’re motivated to fix it if something’s wrong.
I realized that the conversation that I would have to have with these grown adults three years older than me would not be worth it. The foundation to fix this friend group was not there from the start and I had no willpower to build it up myself.
Takeaways
I learned being with six different personalities may sound cool in hindsight, but those minds are bound to clash.
Sometimes being friends with people who are far too unlike you can be a disaster, especially in big numbers like a huge friend group.
There is something special and comforting about keeping your circle small. I’ve known my two best friends since high school and although we may have disagreements like any other friends, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Small Circle, But Still Social
The key to having a small circle but still being engaged with people around you is ultimately valuing your time.
Even though I have a small circle of people I call close friends, I still have such a vast amount of people I talk to and spend time with. Keeping your circle small doesn’t mean you have to limit the people you connect with and talk to on a daily basis.
When you value your time and the relationships you have with different people, you ultimately learn how to have a good social life, but not one that will overwhelm you.
It’s also important to know when you and someone you met simply don’t click. It’s perfectly okay to keep people you meet as just an acquaintance.
You also shouldn’t feel the need to mix and mend all your different friends you meet into one because that also can lead to a clash of personalities and values.
When the vibe is there you’ll know it, so live your life socially but not recklessly because the people you keep in your life are important.