Personal Essay: The Effects Of Friendship

I’ve had many different friends in my life. I’ve had good and bad relationships. Friends that I grew apart from and others that ditched me because they simply just didn’t want to be my friend anymore. But all of those relationships, good and bad, have shaped who I am today and each have taught or showed me something different about friendship. For that reason all of the hurt, trials, and stress those relationships brought to my life was all worth it. It’s so important to surround you with people that care and love you. The effects of friendship are truly everlasting. For my 12th Birthday I had a party at my house with my closest friends at that time. Looking at the picture above I remember my friend Taylor coming over early and doing my …show more content…
We all listened to the same bands, loved the same teen heartthrob, and all had a similar personality. It took losing a core group of friends of mine transitioning into freshman year to show me that it’s okay to be your own person. I will say freshman year was a huge struggle for me to go through without being friends with the people that I had grown closest to in the 8th grade and years prior to 9th grade, but in the long run it has benefitted me more than I could have ever imagined that year. I now am not afraid to be alone sometimes and not always hang out with a group of people or one person every weekend. I’m okay with spending time by myself just relaxing in my room or grabbing some lunch at bread co by myself when I can. I don’t feel obligated to have someone with me all the time. I feel comfortable with having different interests than my friends. One of my favorite classes in Choir and none of my friends take that class, but it’s okay because that’s what interests me. I’ve also learned that it’s okay to have friends that aren’t in the same group. Diversity is good. I used to stay within my friend group and I never used to make an effort to talk to any other people or build any other relationships with any other people. I was so afraid of being left out of my group that I thought if I chose to spend time with someone else it would change everything. But it’s not okay to just have one group of …show more content…
When I was young I used to choose friends by how much fun I had with them and if we had any shared interests. I didn’t pay attention to the important qualities. People that I used to be friends with would disrespect their parents and go against their will. They would choose to partake in inappropriate activities that I wanted no part in. I would feel awkward in most of the conversations we shared due to the topic or the comments that were made in them. I was constantly left out of things and had to push my way back into conversations. As uncomfortable and as hard as these moments were to go through, they were the moments that showed me what I valued in my friends. It also showed me that they weren’t the people I was supposed to be friends with. As time goes on I become more and more confident and comfortable with the decisions that I have made that have made in choosing the friends that I have today. We were bound to stop being friends due to the amount of change they undertook in their morals and attitudes and how much I had not. I couldn’t even imagine where I would be today if I were still friends with those girls. Now I am more selective in the people that I choose to invest my time in, in building stronger friendships. It’s important to have friends the share the same values as me because values are strong and if people have opposing values they are bound to stop being friends at some point. You have to