Keeping Old Friends, Making New Ones

In the last two months, I have acquired a unique collection of important, need-to-know facts from college: dining hall food only gets worse with time, if Socrates was real, Plato was in love with him, and friendships take a lot more effort to maintain now than they ever did in high school.
Marti Panczner, the peanut butter to my jelly, the mac to my cheese, the Simon to my Garfunkel, is a freshman at Rutgers University.
Before leaving for our different universities, we hadn’t spent more than a few days apart since we became best friends in high school. During the school year even the occasional, week-long family vacation was a painful feat for two girls that were rarely seen apart.
And while it may seem a tad dramatic 74.9 miles seemed impossible for our borderline-codependent friendship. Just like everybody else, Marti and I have found our own ways to make it work.
Although Marti was undoubtedly the most difficult goodbye I had to make when leaving Cape May for college, it wasn’t easy leaving any of the members of my squad. But it’s been great.
We learned quickly that the easiest way to keep friendships from sinking is to make plans and stick with them. Day by day, I make sure to talk to most of my friends regularly.
Even if the conversation is more of a back and forth of texts containing random memes and embarrassing photos from seventh grade than any actual exchange, the gesture still means a lot.
On a bigger scale, we plan major events every month or so to anticipate. Eight of my best friends from high school and I, all attending five different universities, just bought tickets for a concert at Penn State University next month.
While investing $100 each was steep for a group of poor college students, it’s worth it to make memories with and time for each other (and there’s also the added bonus of seeing the stars of Indie Rock, Modern Baseball and the Front Bottoms, live).
But don’t get me wrong, learning to dedicate big chunks of time to new friendships is just as difficult as taking care of older, long distance ones from high school.
People don’t realize how easily friendships are formed when you are forced to spend five days a week, seven hours a day with the same groups of people. At that point, it’s almost difficult not to form bonds with the people you’re surrounded by. Now, each class I am in is filled with dozens of different people of varying ages, majors, interests, and schedules.
For the first time in my life, I actually have to put effort into forming and maintaining relationships instead of my usual, more relaxed, laissez-faire approach.
I have lost count of the number of “Hey, you free to grab dinner?” texts I have both sent out and received.
It boils down to one question; how much energy are you willing to put into your friendships?
It’s all about throwing yourself out there, at the risk of forcing yourself through a rare boring or awkward conversation over a meal. I can say without a doubt that the risk has always paid off.
Manyak, a local of Cape May for all 18 years of her life, is a graduate of Lower Cape May Regional High School. She is in her freshman year at Villanova University as English major.