How is it February already? It is the eve of a huge storm and I feel like we’re modern day Noahs or something: everyone I spoke with earlier kept mentioning the imminent storm and how much snow we’ll be expecting while making worried faces. I guess it’s a good conversation piece but after hearing it a more than once or thrice, I suddenly feel like I should have made sure we had enough fresh drinking water and non perishables to last us through the storm. Oh, and perhaps a bomb shelter or cellar would be handy. And one of those radios that you crank by hand to operate.

How fitting then that my last entry before The Storm is about friendship.

After Pam and I gently went our separate ways, I settled into high school. Two of my close friends from age 12 (Ann and Jen, mentioned in Part I) were with me at this new high school and I did hang out with them at first. Ann and Jen drifted apart and I had always been closer to Jen than Ann so I stuck with her. Jen became part of a larger group of friends and I hung out with them often, but because of the size of the group and the fact that my schedule varied so much from theirs, I was never as close to any of them as they were to each other. You see, back in those days I thought I was going to be a doctor, and I tortured myself with Finite Math, Calculus, Physics, and their slightly less demonic cousins Algebra, Chemistry and Biology, while my friends stayed away from those courses, smart women that they were. I always felt like I was a half step behind when it came to catching up on gossip because they would usually have already discussed it during spare periods (which I didn’t share with them). They are a really awesome group of women and I can honestly say that any feelings of not quite belonging that I felt was not because of anything they ever said or did to me (though it was the things they did, that I didn’t do, that led to my feeling “different”). They tried to include me in things as much as they could but it wasn’t always possible for me to be part of it because my parents didn’t quite get or agree with this thing we can call Living Like a Typical North American Kid of the 1990s back in, well the 90s. I think they hoped that they could somehow simulate their childhood of the 60s (in Nigeria, lest thoughts of free love come to mind) for us, here.

I had a very strange place in that group: coming from a somewhat strict family, things like experimenting in any way other than in science class were not encouraged, nor were sleepovers. My dad will never understand the concept and why people would do this voluntarily. While the group had fun parties, (further) explored dating, tried smoking (some) and had regular sleepovers, I studied or stayed at home and read. Every now and then I’d go to a house party or a drinking party, but my role at these parties was that of observer. Drinking had never interested me, so I had no problem hanging out with them and not drinking. To be honest, I was scared of being drunk, a thought I’m still uncomfortable with today. I must have been a freak to them: they also found it weird that I never swore either. Despite our differences, I enjoyed this group of friends because they were always supportive of my plans, even though I’m sure they thought I was so strange.

Through this group, I saw what the dynamics of a bunch of girls all trying to be each other’s best friend really looked like. It might not be impossible to be best friends with four or five other girls but it’s very hard. The true picture was that some were closer friends than others, some actually disliked others but were willing to keep quiet about it for the sake of the group. It hasn’t been easy, and over the years a friend or two in the group has had to leave, but the group still remains in large part, and I see them as a group at least once a year and run into them individually from time to time. I know they’d still count each other among their best friends, although some have developed other close friendships over the years. It’s nice to have a group with which you share some history, people who you feel wish you well and are genuinely happy to see you when you run into them unexpectedly. Now that we are all in the working world, we seem to be on a more similar path too, which means I don’t feel so out of the loop anymore. Also, as one who was on the perimeter of the group, I was able to form individual friendships to varying degrees with the others.

During my last year of high school, I hung out less with this group, mostly because our course loads were almost 100% different and it was important for me to make new friends in my classes, friends that I might attend university with. It sounds like this might have been the rationale I gave when we drifted apart but this is “in retrospect” thinking. I see now that I was looking to befriend people who had similar academic goals to me so that I wouldn’t always feel like the geek on the perimeter.

Filed under: Friends by jummy