Over winter break I caught up with a friend from home over a cup of strong diner coffee and towering stack of French toast. She and I had been close during high school, and made a solid effort during our first years to keep each other in the loop through constant streams of text messages and FaceTime dates. However, in the whirlwind that was the beginning of my second year, our communication dwindled.
While I enjoyed our time together and was happy for the chance to catch up, I found it difficult to keep track of the cast of characters that filled her life and the ways they interacted. I found myself clinging to various — sometimes arbitrary — identifying details. I frequently stopped her to clarify “your roommate,” “the one from New Jersey” or “the one with the man bun” after any reference to a name. The confusion felt justified — covering nearly four months of experiences in an hour and a half is not an easy task.
It occurred to me that it was likely I would still need to be reminded of the various roles people played in her life even if they were reinforced with daily communication. It’s a script I recognize in relationships here at the University. Clarifiers like “the one from your high school,” “who lived in your dorm” or “the one with the man bun” are still useful for relationships I maintain on a daily basis. Even worse, I have fallen into the habit of tacking on identifiable adjectives or qualifying names with organizations to save time.
The University is a big place, and with opportunities to make friends at different times and from different organizations, it isn’t rare to develop multiple social circles. We’re not always going to know all of our friend’s friends. As difficult as it is to admit, it’s exhausting to try and keep up with all the details of our friends’ lives. It’s even more difficult to reconcile this idea with the desire to be a present and invested friend. But if we spread ourselves too thin, the quality of all our relationships can suffer as we struggle to keep up.
I’ve gained a newfound perspective on the maintenance of friendships this year — both old and new, long and short distance. Rather than feel our circles shrinking as unmaintained friendships simply fade away, I prefer to see them as shifting instead. Different relationships fit into different parts of our lives. We can spend time and interact with those who are closest to us, by a measure of distance or otherwise, and trust that older friends will still be there for the coffee dates and catch-up sessions that our return home inevitably brings. A true friend will understand when you’re not sure which person they’re talking about, and more often than not, those silly qualifiers will become something we laugh about.
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