From our first moments at Andover until the very last, we hear about how we will make “life-long friends.” And while that is no doubt true, finding our place on Andover’s campus, navigating our way around countless relationships with different groups, and deciding who we spend our time with can be difficult to juggle. As new students, it can feel intimidating or overwhelming to be tasked with discovering and forming connections when we feel as if we’ve been thrust into a sea of unfamiliar faces. For returning students, oftentimes it can be easy to latch onto the first people we meet and then limit ourselves from continuing to meet and befriend new people. So how might we find ways to continue stretching ourselves? Look no further than Paresky Commons, the next Weekender event that sparks your interest, or your typical every day routine at Andover. These moments are all around us, if only we dare to embrace them.
The first step is perhaps to normalize both reaching out and being rejected when it comes to new friendships. Just the sound of this may make us feel distressed and uneasy, but that is precisely why we must engage in them more. Oftentimes, we fall into the comfort of our established friend groups, and while this kind of support system is important, it can also indirectly discourage us from meeting someone new. Although interactions with new people may be awkward at first, they’re good opportunities for us to branch out past our usual circles and get to know other community members better. There’s a chance we will make a new best friend, but regardless of the outcome, a 5-minute conversation will only help us connect further with the people whom we share this campus with. Despite any initial reservations we may have in taking the first step, this is a stakes, a leap of faith, that is worth taking. At the end of the day, fear is not conquered by avoidance – it is overcome through repeated exposure and action.
Furthermore, if we can establish etiquette for handling these situations such that even if we were rejected, we would not feel absolutely crushed, then the possibility of cultivating a new environment of proactive interpersonal bonding becomes even more plausible. These are basic, but crucial, courtesies like respecting people’s personal space, their time, their mood, and their personality. At Andover, our days are often filled with socializing and constant human interaction, and while that can be gratifying, it can also be draining at the same time for introverts or those with a limited social battery. Part of normalizing rejection comes in the form of recognizing when people simply would like some alone time, whether it’s because they’ve had a tiring day, want to study, or just prefer to be by themselves for a while. Let us give each other the benefit of the doubt and refrain from assuming malicious intent when we are met with a “no” and, at the same time, also actively make efforts to embody an open mindset and talk to new people.
Though we may feel that opportunities for us to expand beyond our closest friends are rare, our daily lives already offer countless openings to seize upon. From off-campus mall trips to Friday night movies in the library to club meetings and school-sponsored speaker series, all of these contexts provide us with the chance to step out of our comfort zone. In many cases, we subconsciously restrain ourselves to only the company of our closest friends while failing to realize that these very events are invitations for us to break free of our self-imposed barriers and spend time with someone new. These are the exact moments when we can embrace the initial discomfort, the unfamiliarity, the unpredictability. We become acquainted with people in so many different spaces, from the classroom to the dormitory to the Borden gyms; don’t be afraid to let these friendships blur and grow beyond the well-defined boxes that we constructed them in.
We are all only at Andover for a limited amount of time. There are people here who we may never see again, whose paths we only cross at this one instant. Cherish it. Be forgiving; look beyond first impressions from freshman year and give one another a second chance. Throughout our years here, we will grow as people, and so will those around us. Friendships change, evolve, drift apart, conjure up seemingly out of thin air, remain the same. But the one thing that remains constant is our place in this community, our potential to make a home here away from home. So make the most of it. Start a conversation with the person standing next to you in line at Commons, sit down with your History group partner that you’ve always really enjoyed working with but never really got to know outside of class, roast S’mores with the friend of a friend you think is really nice at Susie’s on a Friday evening. These are the moments that we will look back upon with fondness in the years to come, the beginnings of the friendships we will hold close to our hearts even long after we leave Andover.
