Growing up in Ireland, my mom was forced to take three languages in high school. Irish and Latin were two mandatory classes and the last was for her discretion. For no known reason besides what I believe is a hereditary disease of the need to be quirky and unique, my mom chose German. This choice made her the only person in her class to take the language, so when a family in Germany wanted to find a nice, Catholic, Irish family to teach their daughter English, my mom didn’t have much of a competition.
 After begging her father and mother, she acquired herself a personal exchange student on the premise that she would never go to Germany, which obviously didn’t last long. So from the ages of 11 to 16, my mother had her new friend Monica visit Ireland for the month of October and my mother traveled to Germany each year. Without realizing it, my grandfather’s permission would give my mother a lifelong friend and a daughter obsessed with Germany (me).
The summer of 2023 was easily the most formative summer of my life. Besides it being my senior year summer full of graduation parties and rekindling so many friendships, I met Monica as well as her two sons. Peer, 6 months younger than me, and Yann, 6 months older.
I have many cousins all around Europe and even in Africa from my Egyptian side. These boys were not like any other I had met before.Â
That summer I was their personal tour guide and I loved every minute of it. Thankfully, I am from the best state in the US, New Jersey, where New York City, Philadelphia and the beach are all less than an hour away. So I spent almost 3 weeks of my life bringing them to every borough of New York, my favorite beaches in Jersey, a Drake concert in Philadelphia, DC, Six Flags and, of course, a Jersey classic, Wawa. Most importantly, I integrated them into American teenage culture to the best of my ability.
As I mentioned before, I have many âcousinsâ (every Middle Eastern person calls everyone their cousin even if you are simply neighbors)Â from around the world, so my friends commonly ask me:
âSo which random, unrelated âcousinâ will we be meeting this year?â
Despite English not being their first language and my 6 years of German being of no use to me, we immediately clicked and they seamlessly joined my friend group of 8 girls who I’ve known since I was 7 and treat like sisters.
Obviously, in America, the young life culture is different, with drinking ages, clubs and bars, but the biggest difference for us was the friend groups. By the end of the trip, the boys had one main comment. Why are there no guys in my friend group?Â
Throughout their trip, they joined me in various house parties and kickbacks. There, they met the very few guys that we hung out with including all my friends’ boyfriends. There, Peer and Yann genuinely thought these 18 and 19-year-old boys were 16, not only because of their height but because, in their words, âthey acted like little boys.â
Over the summer of 2024, I was able to return the favor and use them and their house to visit Switzerland, where I got to finally see the differences they had noticed.Â
The biggest difference I saw was the innocence between intersex friendships. Despite having a girlfriend, Peer had multiple friend groups where the majority were girls and he seemed genuinely just as close with those girls as his guy friends.Â
One night after befriending one of their very good female friends Alex, I told her how I felt like every male and female interaction in my experience in America was always tainted with an underlying tone of something more. I feel like most of my male relationships in high school could never be simply platonic or at least it would never have lasted that way. I even had to tell Peer how at one of the parties I brought him to, he became the center of drama between my best friend and her ex that lasted weeks simply because Peer spoke to her, despite being my guest and just talking to one of the few people he knew at the party.Â
Now I must mention one variable that I feel may have an effect on my theory. Because Switzerland is a small, European country, every densely populated area is basically a city, and Peer and Yann live 10 minutes from the capital where all their friends are from. Therefore I feel a little guilty comparing my suburban, platonic boy experiences to a city person’s life. However, given that New Jersey is so densely populated and we live near so many cities, I felt like I could still make these comparisons.
In my experiences in Europe, I became friends with people my age for once, and there I felt genuinely free to be myself. I didn’t feel like I had to dull myself down to ensure nothing was read the wrong way, nor did I feel like I had to play the part of a girly girl to retain a man’s attention. I was able to truly find friends who liked me because of my personality as it was.
 I do feel like during my college experience I am feeling more and more confident in my male friendships, but I will never not be jealous of the ease of those European friendships.Â