While many of my peers start to say their final goodbyes to classmates they’ve known their whole lives, I can’t help but feel like I am missing out on the shared nostalgia. I moved to EGR two weeks before sophomore year from Louisville, Colorado, (a small town right outside Boulder), so I don’t have the same feeling of sentiment of graduating with my classmates. Boulder County and East Grand Rapids have very different environments, and so the move took a fair amount of adapting, but I don’t think I would be the person I am today if I hadn’t moved.
For starters, Boulder, for better or worse, has a very relaxed vibe, almost to the point that it is competitive. Kids strived to be the most laid back, chill, down-to-earth versions of themselves. The concept of a “friend group” didn’t exist in Boulder County, mainly because kids were always trying to get to know people to establish their easy going and friendly reputation. This being said, while I had my core close friends, my weekends never consisted of hanging out with the same group of people.
On the latter, while people in EGR are very friendly, on a social level they tend to hangout only with the same core friends. People may smile and talk to strangers out of manners, but rarely do you see someone looking to add new additions to their close circle of friends. For instance, in my first couple months in East I asked a lot of people to hangout, and while people seemed eager to get to know me, they rarely wanted to do so outside of school. This really surprised me since while I understood people already had close friends, I didn’t understand why more people weren’t looking to make new close friends or get to know a wider, more diverse collection of people. Since moving here and being forced to talk to everyone in order to make new friends, I’ve had a lot of people surprise me with how cool they were and I’ve become friends with many people I never would’ve expected to.
Therefore, after observing the dynamics of East for the past couple years, I’ve realized that when you have a set-in-stone friend group, it’s easy to not see a need for more close friends, unless you look at the big picture. Having more friends, or not even necessarily more friends, but just being friendly with all types of people is so much more exciting and filling since it opens you up to new opportunities, new friendships, and hearing new perspectives. It’s easy to assume “I am close with my friends for a reason, I must not have anything in common with other people at my school, so therefore I don’t need any new friends.” But pushing yourself to be eager to get to know everyone is not a sign of lack of loyalty to your close friends, it is simply demonstrating a welcoming attitude and friendliness. Everyone deserves to be given a chance and to be listened to too. With that, my advice to underclassmen would be to just be polite, respectful, and understanding with everyone. Being friendly can go a long way, and I hope that the future classes at EGR can normalize being friendly and forming connections with people outside their inner circle.
After all, high school is short, and so is life, but the connections you make no matter how deep or how small are what makes life worth living. If you are understanding, kind, and eager to get to know other people, life is so much more enjoyable because a positive attitude takes off so much of the pressures of day-to-day life. When it comes to friendships, let people surprise you. No one is ever beneath or above you, so next time you get a chance, talk to someone new, people will surprise you with their personality more than you think. You’re never gonna regret the memories and the connections that come with being friendly.
