One of my all time favorite movies is High School Musical. I grew up in the ultimate HSM era, so to find anyone who loves the trifecta more than I do would be a bit of a challenge. But hey, we’re all in this together, right?
Aside from the catchy music and teenage Zac Efron, something I love about the High School Musical franchise is the way they portray friendships. Chad always has Troy’s back and Gabriella knows she can count on Taylor no matter what. When watching the films (for the 1000th time if you’re like me), you know that whatever twists and turns the story takes the characters will always have their best pal by their side.
This sort of loyal-friend plan was something I was on board with from a very young age. But after watching Troy and Gabriella “Break Free”, I was fully convinced that the perfect friendship contained these elements:
Spending every waking moment together
Coordinating outfits
Calling each other by lazy nicknames, like “Tay” or “Gab”
Mirroring each other’s attitudes
Hitting up dances with your other nice but less important friends
Dating two guys who are also each other’s best friend
Hacking into the school alarm system to clear the gymnasium and chemistry classroom when the basketball championships and scholastic decathlon are both on the same day as the callbacks for the school musical where you need to rock your performance to knock off the queen of the drama department
Okay, so that last one was a joke only true East High-lovers will get. But do you ever find yourself making these lists of silly, superficial, and sometimes unattainable friendship goals?
I spent most of my elementary and middle school life painting the picture of the perfect slumber party, shell necklace, boy crazy friendship in my head. But the truth is that when you don’t connect well with the 18 other girls in your high school class it’s just plain hard to make good friends. After a high school career filled with what seemed like endless weekends without plans, years of boring family parties for my birthday, and a school district I felt disconnected from, I decided the perfect BFF setup just may not have been in the cards for me.
As I began my college career it was difficult to get that idea of a perfect friend out of my head. At some points I felt it would have been easier to simply accept friendship applications and start weeding them out based on what boxes they did or did not check. Sure, I met people: fellow Maple Hall residents, classmates, peers, people in clubs and organizations… But this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
To the surprise of my high school-self, my social life took off rapidly during my sophomore year of college. I reconnected with past acquaintances, I started hosting more people for dinners and coffee, and I took more time to focus on my relationships with others. It was never the picture-perfect friendship style I imagined, but it worked for me.
I have since returned to college for my senior year, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the relationships I’ve built over the last few years. Back to school is my least favorite time to explore social media, mainly because post after post is filled with pictures of 4, 6, 10 gal pals in a shitty college house with a stupid name, drunk and giggly, and “loving these beautiful girls”. Honestly, I was about 3 VSCO-girl-gang posts away from deleting social media for a very long time. So as I sat on my couch watching HGTV and scrolling through Instagram on “8:01 Day” (the last Saturday before class, and it gets wild), I suddenly felt as though I was missing out on something.
“I don’t have any friends.”
“I’m so boring.”
“I’m literally too lame to be doing anything with anyone today.”
That self-deprecation with get you every time. Did I have the perfect group of 5 girls to bum around at house parties with that afternoon? No. Did I have that friendship from the movies with anyone? Nope. However, what I do have are some of the most perfectly imperfect friendships out there.
I have friends who go to bed at 9 PM on a Friday night.
I have friends who don’t go to bed at all on Friday nights.
I have friends who make last minute plans.
I have friends who cancel plans at the last minute.
I have friends who focus on achieving a high GPA.
I have friends who are just tryna get by.
I have friends who I talk to everyday.
I have friends who I talk to once a month.
I have friends who like baking days.
I have friends who are always down for road trips.
I have friends who have been seasonal.
I have friends who are going to be here for the long haul.
You may have read that list and be thinking, “Well geez, Emily, that list sounds pretty complete.” The difference is that there is no one person who “is” all of these things. This idea defeats the idea of having a singular best friend forever. The idea that no one person, including you yourself, is a perfectly complete person.
To feel like you have a solid foundation of friends you truly have to take a step back and appreciate what each person in your life brings to the table. Life is all about finding your tribe and, as they say, “it takes all kinds.”
Find your tribe.
Acknowledge your tribe.
Love on your tribe.
