Remember that question, what can this teach me? Well, this taught me about friendship. It’s beyond important to look for friends in which you can be your authentic self.
Crazy that it’s my senior year of college. I just had my last first day of school, and we just celebrated my roommate’s 22nd birthday… Like 22? I still can’t get over it. We’re getting old. It’s almost time for a big girl job, and yet, it feels like just yesterday that I moved out of my childhood bedroom and into the big leagues… or, well, the Mizzou dorms… but the same thing, right? I mean, Mizzou is the place to be: great course options (especially when you choose the J-school), an abundance of scholarship opportunities, and not to mention, a great social scene. That is if you can figure out how to navigate it.
I found myself in a bit of a pickle right off the bat when sorority recruitment didn’t go my way. Rather than accept it as how it was, and move on, I tried to fit into a friend group that didn’t end up being for me. Until last year, I was so caught up in the idea of rolling with the “cool” kids that I didn’t ever stop to think about what I really wanted. I recently learned about what’s called a social need—a desire to belong to some reference group (definition per my marketing textbook). Many of us look forward to Greek life because it means we will belong to something, something “cool.” You enjoy the power of saying, “I’m a Zeta,” or, “I’m an Alpha Phi.” I mean, that’s literally one of the first questions I get asked when meeting someone new on campus. I even got asked when I went to apply for a job… And yeah, I will admit that I used to get embarrassed about the entire situation, but at some point, I learned that those labels don’t matter. People matter. Authenticity matters. So yeah, if you find your people within a sorority, that’s great. But, that wasn’t the case for me.
It’s funny. While we were celebrating my roommate’s birthday, she said, “It’s the best when you don’t have to be superficial for anyone.” And, she’s right. Having the right people around you, people you can fully be yourself around, makes a world of a difference.
I’ll be honest, you can ask me time and time again if I love Mizzou (which I get asked by every adult ever), and I will beat around the bush with, “Yes, Mizzou is great,” when the truth is that I have found myself questioning my college decision more times than not. Now, Mizzou is a great school, and I take full accountability for the way my first two years panned out. I kept myself in a bubble. I let that social need take over. And actually, I wouldn’t change it.
Remember that question, what can this teach me? Well, this taught me about friendship. It’s beyond important to look for friends in which you can be your authentic self. What does that look like, you might ask? To me, it rests on a couple of key ideas. For one, when I am around my true friends, I don’t feel the need to put on a front. I can be a ball of anxiety or my goofy, weird self without the fear of judgment. Moreover, I never have to question that they’re always going to be there for me. At work all day? They offer to bring me lunch. Mood seems off? They check on me. Those seem like simple acts of friendship, but in reality, we only find that within certain people. It’s no one’s fault, it’s simply life. We connect with some people better than others. I encourage you to branch out and find those people.
Written August 23, 2023
Photo via Pinterest.
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